


Care and Feeding of your Feral Asgardian

by theorytale



Series: Ginnungagaps [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst and Humor, Angsty Schmoop, Asgard on Earth, Gen, M/M, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Survivor Guilt, Tony Stark's A+ naming skills, inappropriately light treatment of planetary invasion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 23:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16774999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorytale/pseuds/theorytale
Summary: In which Earth is collectively pretty terrible about dealing with refugees, mischief gods have really inconvenient ways of expressing gratitude, and Tony is not getting emotionally invested. He'snot.Unintended sequel to "Loki Odinson's Break-up Playlist".





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is not intended to be about "Civil War", but the ramifications are too big to just ignore. It's from Tony's point of view and is therefore subjective, but could be construed as not Steve friendly so there's your warning. For that matter it can also be construed as not Tony friendly because both of them did terrible things. I would prefer if we could all just agree that the real villains of that movie were the writers.

The thing is, Tony has people in his life - certain people - with whom he has deep and long-standing relationships. There are people, certain people, that he knows inside out and front to back (some more literally than others, admittedly, but that's what comes of getting all up in your bestie's spinal column) and so he knows how they will react when he makes somewhat impulsive, spur-of-the-moment decisions like opening his home to forlorn wayfarers of the potentially homicidal variety.

He knows how they'll react, and he knows what to say to explain why it seemed reasonable to invite a former crazed world conqueror to move in with them (there's no real proof yet on the 'former' part but Tony's kind of crossing his fingers and hoping for the best?) but, the thing is, the problem is, he'll run the conversations through in his brain a couple of times, mapping out the potential branching pathways and possibilities, and then he just... kind of... forgets to actually _have_ the conversations. Out loud. With the people.

So, Monday morning, he hears Rhodey yell down the hall, "Tony, why is there a hipster in leather pants in the kitchen?"

Oh, Tony realizes with a jolt of chagrin. "Oops," he says out loud.

Tony heads to the kitchen. He is not sidling in, or slinking (definitely not slinking), he's just... not flaunting the fullness of his personality just at this particular moment. Toning the strut down to a six, maybe a six point five. It's not like he's done anything _wrong_. He's just... being... decorous.

Rhodey's in his wheelchair, which meant he spent too long doing physical therapy over the weekend and exhausted himself. There are little lines of pain and fatigue around his eyes, but for the most part he looks amused. Pity that's not going to last.

Loki is apparently whisking a bowl of pancake mix, with his hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, and flour on the sleeves of his green tunic. He looks downright domestic (and yeah, more than a little hipster-ish). It's extremely disconcerting.

"Oh, hey, I was meaning to introduce you two," Tony says breezily as he makes his way ( _saunters_ , ha, that's an s-themed word he can work with) to the nearest caffeine-dispensing device. "Loki, James Rhodes, vice versa."

He can almost _hear_ Rhodey's expression change, from 'tell me you didn't bang this guy (or tell me you did so I can mock you forever)' to 'what the actual flying fuck did you just say are you out of your mind'.

"Rhodey, Loke's gonna stay here for a while 'til he gets some stuff figured out. Kind of like that halfway house for troubled teens you were saying I should set up." Okay, the line about the halfway house was actually a dig about the Spiderling he's taken under his wing, but Tony prefers to act like it was a genuine suggestion. "It's almost like fate stepped in - like a calling. I could have a calling." He cocks his head, picturing the magazine spreads. "Tony Stark: philanthropist, mentor, great man. Nurturing the new generation. I can see it, it could work. Loki, you tried espresso yet? It's great, you can drink it from these tiny cups and pretend you're a giant."

He only notices Loki's tiny wince because it makes the whisk scrape unpleasantly against the mixing bowl. Huh.

"I'd rather not," Loki says, voice a little tight.

Is everything with this guy going to turn out to be a buried issue? That could get tedious. And hard on the booze supply. Tony grimaces to himself. To Loki he offers a shrug, and a "Suit yourself - but you're missing out," before he pointedly knocks back his own tiny cup of bitter ambrosia.

Rhodey's not wrong though; Loki's rocking the leather pants. It's just crying out for a 'those would look even better on my floor' joke. And Tony owns the place, so technically all the floor is his floor.

"Tony," Rhodey says carefully. It's the 'Uh Oh' voice, the falsely calm one that shows up right before Rhodey starts throwing around accusations that Tony is 'unreasonable' or 'selfish' or, on occasion, 'self-destructive to the point of insanity, I mean it, Tony, you should seriously see someone and you know how I feel about shrinks'.

"What, I'm surrounded by freakishly tall people, I need all the help I can get," Tony says, knowing all too well why Rhodey is using the 'Uh Oh' voice. And he knows that Rhodey knows he knows.

" _Tony_ ," Rhodey repeats, a lot harder. "Can I talk to you a minute?"

Loki makes a show of concentrating very hard on the mixing bowl and nothing else. His shoulders are tense; it's a lot easier to see in the thin tunic he's wearing than the usual layered get-up.

Tony tries for something like reassurance. "It's fine, Bambi, he's just got a little shouting to get out of his system. Save me some pancakes." He puts the espresso cup on the bench and follows Rhodey into the hallway.

"What the fuck," Rhodey hisses, as soon as Tony has closed the door behind them.

"Okay," Tony concedes; "I get that this looks bad--"

" _Looks bad_ , this more than _looks bad_ , Tony, that's the guy that tried to take over the planet!"

"Right, but he failed, so--"

"Why is he even _here_? Did he show up with the refugee ship? Because I'm pretty sure I remember you saying Asgard was handling him."

Tony grimaces, more familiar than he'd like to be with Thor's idea of 'handling' problems. Handling them right around the throat. "Yeah, well, Asgard used to be safely far away. Right now-- Frankly, Rhodey, we let them keep 'handling' him and I give it six months until a repeat of his tantrum in 2012."

Rhodey stares at him. "What part of that made you decide it would be a great idea to _invite him to move in with us_?!"

"The part where I'd like for that not to happen," Tony retorts, rolling his eyes. Honestly. "Obviously. Plus, Thor made him blow up their planet, so he's pretty bummed right now and--"

" _He blew up their planet_ ," Rhodey repeats in a horrific hybrid of a whisper and a shriek that _has_ to be wreaking havoc on his throat. "Oh my God. Oh my God. You've finally lost it. I knew this day would come. I can't... we're all going to die, oh Jesus."

"Don't be so overdramatic," Tony says. This is exactly why he hates slowing down and explaining things to people. There's really... only a _small_ chance they're going to die. They've faced worse odds.

Rhodey makes an incoherent noise.

Tony reaches out and pats Rhodey's arm comfortingly. "Look, it's a temporary thing. He just needs somewhere to lay low for a little while, work through a couple of things. It's fine, I'll show him BARF, give him a bit of guidance - I got this."

"Oh my God," Rhodey repeats, a little numbly this time. "Tony, you can't just adopt a war criminal--!"

Oh, no no no, there is no _adopting_ going on, there is no getting invested, Tony has consolidated his interpersonal holdings and has not got the faintest desire to diversify. He doesn't have time to say that out loud - he doesn't even have time to finish flinching before Loki is _right there_ , looming over them in full Space Invader gear and snarling.

The helmet's been updated to some kind of tiara headband thing, letting Loki's hair flare out thick and dark, and its horns nearly hit the ceiling. The layers of leather packed onto Loki's shoulders make him look about ten times broader than before.

Oh, _baby_. He can invade Tony's bed any time.

(Whatever inappropriate thrill Tony may or may not totally have in response to adrenaline, he does at least subtly check his gauntlet-watch. Just to be prepared.)

" _War criminal_ ," Loki repeats, looking absolutely furious. "You insolent, slanderous wretch! I came at the head of an army! I placed myself in every battle, within fair striking distance. I took no other's guise. I used no poisons, set no coward's snares; sent no destruction from afar. I didn't even stir _fog_. I brought my army to a great town that your citizens might have every opportunity to defend themselves. For once, I did everything _right_ and you dare name me a _criminal_!"

Well, now. That's... awkward.

After a pause Rhodey murmurs, "We should make sure someone--"

"--walks Thor through the Geneva Conventions," Tony finishes. "Yeah."

"I fought like a son of Asgard," Loki snarls at them, "for all the good that did me. How _dare_ you accuse me--"

"See," Tony says brightly, deciding this would be a good time to butt in and make sure Loki doesn't feel like he needs to defend himself with something pointier than words. "No war criminals, enemy combatant - and the war's over, so everything's fine. Everyone's a soldier. Except me, I just sold cool toys to soldiers. Close enough. Common ground. How's the pancakes coming?"

"I'm not cooking your breakfast," Loki snaps, whirls around and disappears just before his cape billows into Tony's face.

The door between the hallway and the kitchen never opened.

"That went well," Tony observes.

Rhodey gives him a disbelieving look.

"No, seriously." Tony gestures at the closed kitchen door. "He put on a bit of a show, but no weapons, no fisticuffs. We've had worse here, you have to admit."

Loki can hold his temper better than Thor. Who'd have seen that coming?

Mind you, that probably has a lot to do with what Loki said about destroying Asgard on Thor's command, and how right now it's pretty obvious that Loki would rather chew broken glass than destroy so much as a ficus.

"I don't have to admit anything," Rhodey says flatly. "Do you have any idea what's going to happen if someone finds out about the so-called 'enemy combatant'--"

"Former enemy combatant," Tony corrects, and okay, it's still a little up in the air but if they play this right it doesn't _have_ to be. Tony has already seen the possibilities and potential here and good god but he is so tired of always waiting for everyone else to just _catch up_.

"--stashed in the kitchen?"

"Well, I'm kind of hoping that some kind of official treaty gets worked out before that happens, because I'm not entirely sure Asgardians are legally people yet and that makes things a lot simpler and also a lot more complicated..." Tony pauses, but there's no objection from the kitchen. Apparently being called a war criminal is way more offensive than being called not-a-person. Asgardian priorities are _fascinating_.

"I'll make sure to bring that up at my court martial," Rhodey tells him, and _there's_ the tone of resigned frustration Tony was waiting for. "You know you've jinxed it, right? Treaties take forever. Someone's going to find out he's here--"

"No one's going to--"

The doorbell rings. The doorbell that the Compound still doesn't _have_.

"Oh, shut up," Tony mutters, before Rhodey can get in his 'I told you so'.

\--

There is a man in a cape at the door.

"Doctor Stephen Strange," he introduces himself. "Master of the Mystic Arts."

"Uh huh," Tony says, taking in the guy's ridiculous outfit. "I've actually met my men-in-capes quota for the year, so unless you're selling Girl Scout cookies I'm going to have to ask you to come back, uh, probably never--"

"I won't take up too much of your time," Strange says, starting to step forward. Tony deliberately doesn't move out of the way and Strange stops short, frowning a little. "Right. Well, in short, I monitor extra-dimensional threats to the safety of this world, and one of those threats is here at your facility. I just need to--"

Tony keeps a completely impassive expression, because it's the best way to screw with people's heads. "I'll take five boxes."

Strange stares at him for a few seconds, then makes an irritated face and says, "I'm not selling Girl Scout cookies."

Tony shrugs. "Well then - thanks for thinking of us, but we're under control here."

Strange has a look on his face that Tony is intimately familiar with. It's what Pepper and Rhodey sometimes call the 'dealing with Tony Stark' face, when they're giving him a hard time: an expression of barely controlled frustration and intense disbelief.

"Mister Stark, there is a very dangerous individual--"

Tony holds up a finger, minor point of correction. "Actually, there are three very dangerous individuals; sounds a little low, I know, but we've had some recent changes in the roster, bit of a restructure, better in the long run."

"--who has already--"

There's a shift in the air, and then Loki steps up beside him, voice sarcastic and exaggeratedly bored. "Oh... _you_. I thought the point of breaking up with you is that we wouldn't see each other anymore."

Tony half-turns, keeping Strange in his peripheral vision as he directs an exaggerated pout at Loki. "You had a break up with someone else before me? I thought we had something special."

"We didn't break up, you pre-emptively rejected me," Loki replies smoothly, without taking his eyes off Strange. "That's entirely different."

Loki's made his clothes look like a well-cut business suit, sleek and reserved. It makes Tony think that earlier in the kitchen, with the leather pants and casual tunic, might have been Loki almost... at ease? Or trying to be.

Rhodey's lurking in the background in his wheelchair, shooting Loki dark, suspicious looks.

Wait - Asgardian clothing, but no armor - it wasn't about being at ease, it was about being unarmed. Loki presenting himself as having peaceful intentions. Tony's even more sure he made the right decision.

Strange raises his hands and makes something glowy happen, some sort of geometric design projected in the air. Loki raises a hand of his own and curls all his fingers into a loose fist, and the design snuffs out.

Tony can do all that with holographic interfaces, there is nothing particularly 'mystical' about it. He turns fully back to Strange (and if that happens to place him in front of Loki in what someone who didn't know better might think was a protective stance, well, that's just a coincidence). "Like I said. Thanks but no thanks."

Strange grits out, "This man is a direct threat--"

"Which the U.N. has appointed you to deal with in your capacity as a registered operative under the Sokovia Accords?" Tony suggests sweetly.

Strange scoffs. "I answer to a greater authority--"

Watch, meet gauntlet. Tony charges up, aiming at Strange's chest. "You know, I am getting _really_ sick and tired of people who think that they don't have to follow the same laws as everyone else."

For a moment, Strange takes his eyes off Loki to raise an incredibly sarcastic eyebrow in Tony's direction. "Yes, I'm sure you're held to _exactly_ the same laws as those people who aren't billionaire tech magnates."

Tony wriggles the fingers of the gauntlet, a tiny wave to emphasize the charged repulsor. "If you don't get off my property, then I guess we'll put that to the test."

"Jesus Christ," Rhodey says from behind him, sounding aggrieved; "is it too much to ask that everyone behave like a responsible adult for a second? Not counting you," he adds, presumably aimed at Loki. "Don't start."

" _Thank_ you," Strange starts, obviously interpreting that as Rhodey taking his side. Rookie mistake.

Rhodey wheels forward next to Tony and points his judgiest finger at Strange. "You. If you're swanning around 'defending the Earth' and claiming the right to make decisions about who is and isn't a dangerous threat, especially if you're using some kind of enhanced powers, contact the U.N. and get yourself the goddamn jurisdiction to do so."

Strange starts to scowl. "They wouldn't possibly understand the kind of threats my order deals with--"

"Oh, terrific, another shadowy cabal who thinks they get to secretly police the world," Tony mutters.

Rhodey gets even sterner, if that's possible. "If you've got an entire order, you've got history, knowledge, organization - so you take that to the Accords Council and you _teach them_. And you, Tony - you can't be surprised that people are taking this badly! He's not some random soldier - he _led_ the army!"

Tony sucks in a breath, abruptly fed up with that whole line of discussion. He turns around and steps back, still between Strange and the inside of the Compound but outside the door so he can lock his eyes on Rhodey's. He's had enough.

" _I was there_ ," he grinds out, voice low and intense. "I was right there, getting smashed around by humanoid bug soldiers, seeing way too much of space whale intestines, trying to stop New York getting _nuked_ and falling out of portals in the sky. Don't you dare lecture me on what he brought to New York City, because _I know_ , okay?" 

Rhodey's eyes lower a little and he's remembering the fall-out, Tony knows - the panic attacks, the sleepless obsession, the self-destructive terrorist-baiting (which, to be fair, Tony would probably have done anyway) - and dammit, that wasn't meant to be a play for pity, Tony hated pity, he was just trying to make the point that of the three of them he was the one with the most cause to hold a grudge.

Loki, though... Loki's looking unexpectedly stricken, and yeah, there's some karmic retribution in the fact that Loki now has a very intimate understanding of what it means to have your home nuked. Tony can take some petty satisfaction in that, despite being willing to help Loki find his feet - look, he never claimed to be a saint.

As all this passes through his mind, Tony turns his head to glare at Strange. "As for you, Master of the Fine Arts--"

"Mystic Arts--"

"--I don't seem to recall you _or_ your order showing up back when it would actually have been useful. Or in London when they had their invasion, or hey, that fun time when an alien mind control stick unleashed the evil robot apocalypse on _half the planet_. You don't get to just swoop in now the hard part's been done and declare yourself in charge."

Strange has the decency to look slightly chagrined. "I wasn't yet... That is, the previous Sorcerer Supreme took something of an isolationist..."

" _Supreme_?" Loki mutters, not quite far enough under his breath.

Tony snorts, because if Loki thinks 'Sorcerer Supreme' is a bold claim for one planet then he's got a whole _world_ of discovery ahead of him. "Just wait'll you hear about Miss Universe."

Somewhat stiffly, Strange says, "Regardless, the current danger cannot be ignored. He has already--"

"I already said--"

"--carried out at least one magical attack, possibly more."

Tony hesitates. He can't rule that out; in fact it's completely plausible. Loki… clearly doesn't have the same values they do, and has been known to go to seriously extreme lengths to lash out.

Loki seems to shake himself a little. He folds his arms and says coolly, "You neglect to mention that it was self-defense against someone who not only attacked me first, but has previously attacked me as well. You should be grateful my response was as restrained as it was."

Restrained? Tony eyes him doubtfully.

Then again, Loki's acting different this time around. When Tony told him to leave, he turned around and started to walk away. He was pretty pissed about the 'war criminal' thing, but still held himself back.

He seems tired in a bone-deep kind of way that Tony can relate to all too well. In that state, sometimes it's just too much effort to care enough to be vicious.

"Restrained," Strange repeats bitterly, clearly disagreeing. His cape flutters a bit, and he takes a step backwards - it almost looked like the cape tugged him. Which is ridiculous except that Strange turns his head and says _to the cape_ , "You can't be serious."

"So you did attack him first?" Tony presses, because that's a really important point to clarify. Especially considering Strange seems to be alive and breathing and free of any metal blades.

Strange also seems pretty indignant at the question. "Hardly without reason--!"

"Self-defense," Tony confirms with a nod. That's manageable. Nothing that threatens his fragile, vague agreement with Loki.

Rhodey would tell him - probably _will_ tell him - that he's taking this second chances thing too far, but something under Tony's skin burns at the thought of letting someone like Loki just... be consumed by anger and spite. The idea of letting such potential be so _wasted_ , without even making a bare minimum effort to prevent it - he can't stand it.

And the businessman in him sees that Loki's vulnerable, malleable - that this might be the best opportunity to secure something invaluable. Tony is many things, but he's not one to pass up an opportunity.

"You're taking this maniac's side?" Strange says incredulously. "Do you have some kind of death wish or are you just--"

"Of the two of us," Tony interrupts, deciding to point out the obvious, "which one is actively provoking him, and which one makes this beard look good? I'll give you a hint, the second one is me."

"Arguable," Loki mutters, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Rude," Tony tells him, but it's encouraging to see there's still a bit of spirit left there.

Strange glares at Loki, a hateful, furious expression that probably has something to do with Loki's little attack of 'self-defense'. "I will not just allow him to walk free--"

Strange showed up hurt and angry and Tony is willing to bet the guy hasn't thought past 'find that bastard'. With a sigh and a slight roll of his eyes, Tony cuts to the chase. "So what do you plan to do, exactly?"

Strange looks at him, startled.

Tony raises his eyebrows and makes a 'go on' gesture. "You planning to execute him? I mean, it'll be funny to watch you try, but unlike you I actually _do_ have the jurisdiction to arrest an enhanced person who's trying to commit murder. You planning to send him back to Asgard? In case you haven't been watching the news, _it's not there_. Deportation's not an option. What, exactly, is your game plan here?"

He wishes he didn't have to bring up Asgard's destruction to make the point, not in front of Loki. But it's not exactly something that can be glossed over.

"There are other tools... at my disposal," Strange says, shifting uncomfortably on his feet in a way that confirms Tony's suspicion that the guy has no concrete plan.

"Yeah, and here's one of them: leave Loki with me, and _if_ he tires of my hospitality and stabs me in my sleep, you'll be proven right and you can go be a mystical vigilante to your heart's content."

Strange presses his lips into a thin line and looks back and forth between Tony and Loki.

Loki, wisely, doesn't say anything.

The cape moves again - Tony's sure of it this time. It definitely pats Strange on the arm. That doesn't mean anything, it could be animatronic, something for effect... a really weird effect.

"Fine," Strange says, all but snapping it. "On your head be it."

Tony watches him storm off through an orange sparkly hole in the air, then says absently, "I think Howard used to bet on a horse called Sorcerer Supreme."

"I hope to God you know what you're doing, Tony," Rhodey says tensely, and wheels off.

"I always know what I'm doing," Tony mutters resentfully. "At least ninety percent of the time. Or like... eighty-five, maybe. Eighty-four."

He's left standing with Loki, who is staring at him intently. Tony is not ready for a heartfelt conversation about how he stuck up for Loki when he didn't have to, when (from Loki's perspective) he has every reason not to. So he says, "I'm still going to eat your pancakes," and heads for the kitchen.

\--

Loki dishes the pancakes up onto two plates, which cements his switch in Tony's mind from enemy/threat (violent; public danger) to tolerable acquaintance (grumbles but eventually bows to Tony's supreme authority). Grumbling about it is fine; everyone grumbles about listening to Tony. Even Pepper, Rhodey and Happy grumble. That doesn't mean anything.

Words are superficial; Tony has known this since the first time Howard Stark patted him awkwardly and told someone over his head how proud he was of 'the boy'.

Tony doesn't care how many snide little remarks Loki throws at him to test his goodwill; he mostly cares about two things. One: that Loki understand Tony knows what he's doing, and cooperate when necessary. Two: that Loki understand Tony knows what he's doing, and _not get in the way_.

It's amazing how many people fail number two. Although, usually Tony responds by buying their company out from underneath them, which isn't going to work in Loki's case. Not unless they get him a company first...?

Oh, he's supposed to be trying to have conversations _with_ people before he goes ahead and does whatever he was going to do anyway. Tony pauses between mouthfuls of pancake and says, "Do you want a company? Nothing lavish, just a start-up or something, maybe a franchise..."

Not that Loki's listening. Loki is poking morosely at his pancakes and scowling.

"A _good_ franchise," Tony clarifies; "I mean, I'm not going to stick you with a Subway or anything. Doesn't exactly seem your style."

Loki pushes his slowly disintegrating pancakes around his plate some more. Abruptly he says, without looking up, "I did not intend to burden you with the consequences of my actions."

"You mean Doctor 'I Take Style Tips From Grand Vizier Magazine' back there?" Tony rolls his eyes a little. "Don't sweat it. If not you, there would have been something else. Shadowy cabals are coming out of the woodwork practically every other month, these days."

He invited Loki in, and that puts Loki under his jurisdiction, kind of. Metaphorically. And he really _hates_ people taking his stuff.

"I should never have come here," Loki mutters, more to himself than to Tony; in fact it sounds like he's not responding to Tony at all, which is just impolite. "I don't know what I was thinking... should have just taken my chances with the Nova..."

Under the irritation and frustration, Tony is pretty sure he recognizes a lost kind of longing... an ache to be _wanted_ somewhere. Anywhere. By anyone.

Seriously, he could never forgive himself if he turned Loki loose in this state. For one thing, contrary to his carefully crafted public image, Tony is not a _completely_ self-centered narcissist. He's got the occasional moral or two. Soft spots, even.

Residual traces of compassion aside, it would be irresponsible. Imagine what could happen. Any random ethically-borderline billionaire off the street could wind up getting their hands on Loki and instilling some kind of creepily dependent sense of loyalty, and then where would the world be?

It's really for the best that Tony gets in first.

It's just practicality mixed with a bit of basic decency. He's not getting _invested_. He wasn't joking (at least, he wasn't _only_ joking) when he told Loki he doesn't want to get into anything serious right now. His track record with interpersonal relationships hasn't been so great for the past... ever. He needs a bit of time to decompress. Recover. Breathe.

He finishes his pancakes and decides that Loki obviously isn't going to finish his. Standing, Tony pushes both plates aside. "Come on, I wanna show you something."

Loki bristles for a moment, then visibly controls himself and gives a curt nod. "Very well."

Hm. Control is good but not caring is bad. It still feels like a lot of the spark is missing from Loki. The fight's all drained out of him. And given that he once brought an alien army, it's pretty safe to say he used to have a _lot_ of fight.

Fortunately, Tony can do something about that without getting too deeply involved. All he needs to do is provide the tools.

"Binary augmented retro-framing," he explains, when they reach the workshop. "BARF, for short."

"You don't say," Loki comments blandly.

Tony snorts briefly then fishes out the glasses and slides them on, explaining how the device reads active memories and converts them to a usable format for video or 3-D projection. He demonstrates with something Loki will recognize: their conversation in the penthouse of Stark Tower, back during the 2012 invasion.

The holographic projection of Loki is all strut and swagger. Actual Loki strolls around it, examining it with a hint of a smirk. "I'm taller in your memory. Should I make something of that?"

"Maybe you shrank since then," Tony retorts. Yeah, it's not his best come-back, he admits privately. "The point is - it doesn't just replay memories. You can take charge of them, improve them. You're not limited to what actually happened."

To illustrate his point, he has the retro-framed Loki toss the scepter aside. He's used BARF often enough that varying the images comes easily to him. In the projection, Loki grasps Tony's hand; puts his other hand on Tony's waist and swings them into a waltz.

Belatedly, Tony realizes that he's picturing Loki leading. Eh, it's probably no more incriminating than ogling the leather pants so blatantly.

"So it's like a play," Loki says, head tilted slightly to one side as he watches the dancing figures. "It's your way of placing yourself outside your memory of events and becoming an observer, creating a safe distance from which to re-examine your own responses. I suppose if you lack subjects of your own to enact your reconstructed history, this... machine is a passable substitute. Some of the ways you Midgardians manage to get by are quite creative."

"Um," says Tony, trying to figure out if he was just complimented or insulted.

Loki watches a little longer. Finally his eyebrows draw together slightly, and he looks at Tony. "I... may give your device a try." His face twists in a really weak attempt at a smile: "Given that I, too, lack subjects right now."

Tony raises his eyebrows and has a go at mimicking Loki's posh, sarcastic drawl. "You don't say."

For a very short moment, the weak smile looks a little more genuine, before it goes away.

\--

The day is mostly spent scanning Loki's brain. Getting him to look at still and moving images, scanning while his visual processing center is active; getting him to remember them, scanning while he's engaged in active recall and visualization. Correlating the recall with the original images so the software can determine what to project. All the same steps for audio. There's a lot of repetition involved; most of the work consists of determining _which_ parts of Loki's brain activity are actually relevant and which are just background processes.

Given that BARF was designed based on human neurophysiology, and Loki is a member of an alien species - who also happens to spend most of his time disguised as a member of a _different_ alien species - Tony kind of wishes there were more people around to appreciate what is, quite frankly, a ground-breaking advance in neural interface development.

As it is, he does his best to act confident and calm and not at all like his inner twelve-year-old is gibbering with excitement because he's recalibrating one of his inventions for an _extra-terrestrial brain_.

Disneyland can suck it. This is the happiest damn place on Earth, right here.

\--

Later there's chicken parmigiana and Rhodey not-so-subtly grilling Loki on why he's staying here and what he expects to get out of it. Loki raises an eyebrow and says, "Are you asking me my intentions?" in a tone that skirts the border between innocent and insolent.

"Maybe I am," Rhodey says a little aggressively, and Tony snorts to himself because after so many decades dealing with _him_ Rhodey should really know better.

Predictably, Loki gets a little sarcastic, defensive edge in his voice, and says, "I'm planning to seduce him, marry him for his fortune, and then break his heart by having an affair with a much younger hero. Satisfied?"

Tony rolls his eyes a little and says to Rhodey, "Relax, Gumdrop. It's purely casual sex."

Okay, maybe that last bit of deadpan wasn't entirely necessary, but if Rhodey can't read between the lines then he deserves to stress a little.

Rhodey groans instead and looks up at the ceiling. "Give me strength, there's two of them."

"I'm not sure if I should be flattered or insulted," Loki says.

Tony glances at him sideways and says with a grin, "Don't steal my line."

Loki's eyebrows rise ever-so-slightly. Apparently he took that as a personal challenge, because he looks Tony dead in the eye and says, with the falsest innocence Tony has heard in his entire _life_ , "So, what _is_ sex? I'm not sure we have anything by that name on Asgard."

"Here we go," Rhodey sighs, at least able to recognize that any chances for serious conversation have just gone flying merrily out the window.

Tony's about to give the 'when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much' line, but remembers that both Loki's parents have recently died and that's probably not going to have humorous connotations. Instead he opts for, "Well, Bambi, when two or more consenting adults take the highway to each other's danger zones..."

"Hmm," Loki says, mock-thoughtfully. "It doesn't ring any bells. I believe I need a practical demonstration."

"Well, there's performance sex," Tony says, thinking rapidly, "which is a stylized version for display, there's videos, you can look them up. Then there's _real_ sex-- My word, if you've never had Midgardian sex before, you'll need to be initiated."

"Okay, you know what," Rhodey declares, pushing his plate away from him; "I'm just going to leave you two to whatever competitive insanity thing you have going on."

Loki's eyes are crinkled in genuine amusement, and if Tony feels some satisfaction at bringing a few moments of levity to the guy's current life, that's just triumph at achieving a difficult task. It's to be expected, it's natural.

"By all means," Loki says, full of over-acted enthusiasm. "Tell me, what does initiation entail?"

"Hopefully a straitjacket," Rhodey mutters on his way out of the room.

Tony's about to call 'kinky' after him, then inspiration strikes. "Well, I don't know if you've ever heard someone described as 'vanilla'...?"

\--

By the time they've rooted through the freezer and dug out every opened-and-abandoned tub, there are eight different flavors of ice cream laid out on the table.

Loki surveys them with what looks like some genuine curiosity on his face; he let slip during the freezer rummage that, although he's heard of ice cream, he hasn't actually ever eaten any. "So, I am to choose the flavor that most suits me?" he asks, still playing along.

"Oh yeah, it's a very important decision." Tony hands him a spoon. "Really sets the tone for the whole initiation."

Tony's got a spoon for himself, too, but he only plans to have a little bit. His digestive system's been starting to play up over... a few months, now, and while he hasn't had any official tests done, he's noticed a suspicious correlation with dairy consumption. Given the amount of cheese that was in their dinner... going easy on the ice cream is probably a good idea.

Loki scoops up a large spoonful of the mint chocolate chip (figures he'd pick the green one first) and puts it in his mouth. Then he stops. (Heh. _Freezes_ , one might say.) His eyes are very wide.

Tony's actually not sure if it's meant to be part of the joke. "Too much for you?" he asks, putting on a grin so it can be taken either way.

Loki's jaw works for a few moments, rolling the ice cream around inside his mouth. After swallowing it, he says, "It tastes..."

"If you say 'primitive', you're banned from Midgardian sex," Tony warns him.

Loki shakes his head absently, taking a smaller spoonful of the plain chocolate flavor and testing that one out. Whatever he thinks of it leaves him staring at the tubs on the table with an expression that might be wonder. "I can _taste_ it."

Huh. Tony leans forward, elbows on the table, their game set aside for the moment. "You don't normally taste food?"

Loki glances at him and grimaces, then rocks his hand side to side in the air. "Fruits, cheese, mead... somewhat. Hot foods are worse. Meat from the spit-- I know it tastes of _something_ but it's... it's as if a very loud noise sounded right in my ear and then I was asked to describe its tone."

"Too overpowering," Tony murmurs, kind of fascinated. The Asgardians all look so like humans, it's easy to forget they're actually an alien species. (Two alien species?) Or at least, easy to overlook the implications of that different biology. It's weirdly intimate, sitting here while Loki goes through some kind of diet-based revelation.

Loki pulls another tub - fudge ripple - towards himself and starts digging his spoon into it. "Volstagg used to go on about flavors and spices and aftertastes and for the longest time I thought him merely addled... then I realized it was just me..." He pauses to savor a mouthful of ice cream, eyes closing, expression close to bliss.

Tony stares at him in realization. "Wait, have you seriously never eaten _anything_ frozen? I thought you were supposed to be thousands of years old or something."

"Not _thousands_ ," Loki objects, a little huffily. "And no, on Asgard we don-- didn't particularly make a habit of eating _ice_." He reaches for the cookies 'n' cream, next.

"Oversight on Asgard's part," Tony says smugly. "Snocones are fantastic."

Loki makes a sound that might be fervent agreement or a small orgasm in his mouth. A few moments later, he says, "Perhaps I should conquer Midgard after all."

And people accuse _Tony_ of making tasteless jokes. He shoots Loki an unimpressed look. Aloud, all he says is, "Conflict'll disrupt manufacture and supply."

"Mm." Loki licks at the bowl of his spoon. "A valid point. Very well."

"Maybe don't make that joke in front of other people," Tony adds, with enough steel in his voice that it's not really a suggestion.

Loki's eyes flicker towards him, then cut away, chastised. Sliding a finger through the condensation on the side of the tub of cookies 'n' cream, Loki murmurs, "I was born in a realm of ice and snow... I never realized..."

The enjoyment is gone from his body language, replaced by a somber look Tony can't quite define. Grief? Regret? Guilt? It almost looks like it might have a hint of shame. He doesn't know Loki well enough yet to be sure.

Part of him wants to respond by quoting lyrics from _Immigrant Song_ , but Tony quells that urge and says instead, "You know, these aren't the only flavors. There's... probably a couple of hundred, if you want to do it properly."

Loki looks at the gathered tubs for a few moments, absently rubbing at the palm of his left hand. "Yes," he says finally. "I think... I would like to sample more of these."

Tony may not know the exact details, but he knows enough to figure out that there's some kind of weight to that decision. So, naturally, he leans back in his chair and offers Loki an obnoxious smirk. "Mind you, given the leather and the 'kneel before Zod' shtick we can probably safely skip vanilla."

Loki levels a challenging look at him. "And what flavor are _you_ , Tony Stark?"

Oh, there are _so_ many ways to answer that. Tony smirks with all the innuendo he's capable of. "Wouldn't you like to know."

Loki's eyes narrow in that 'I've been challenged' expression again, then he smirks back. If Tony were a wiser man, he might be worried about that look. But where would be the fun in that?

\--

Tuesday they do some brainstorming around the idea of using technology to block this... magic omniscient surveillance (even the idea of it creeps Tony out), then do a trial run of the modified BARF unit. Loki chooses to remember the penthouse at Stark Tower as well, but replaces half of the furniture with elaborate carvings and complex runic patterns.

"Interesting decorating choice," Tony says, raising an eyebrow. The mis-match is slightly surreal; it makes him feel like something is subtly... _off_ about the entire penthouse.

"Hm," Loki says, sounding distracted. He peers closer at one of the runic things. "The precision is excellent."

Something about Loki's tone of voice suggests that he's holding back. Tony frowns, stepping forward. "So what's _not_ excellent?"

Loki glances at him briefly. The BARF headset with its thick rims recalls that slight hipster-ish vibe. "The color's no worse than your own display. It will suffice."

'No worse'? ' _Suffice_ '? Tony opens his mouth indignantly, then stops short as he remembers Loki's reaction to ice cream the night before.

Alien species. Well, crap.

"You don't see the same portions of the light spectrum as humans do," Tony predicts with tired certainty. The entire calibration is based on flawed assumptions.

The penthouse _is_ slightly off - it's the tiniest fraction cooler-tinged than it should be. There's data missing at the red end of the spectrum. He never would have noticed if he hadn't been looking for it.

Loki cocks his head slightly, a considering expression on his face. "...That explains your television sets as well."

Tony can't help but chuckle. It's a nuisance, but... also pretty cool. "This might take a little longer than I anticipated."

Loki thinks about that for a few moments, then nods. "If you believe the device can produce a closer result, I am willing to continue."

This cooperativeness is still really surreal. If Tony were in Loki's position, he sure as hell wouldn't be letting people from a planet he'd pissed off run scans on his brain. He purses his lips and looks at Loki intently, showing his wariness and curiosity.

Loki meets his eyes with a calm, tired expression, shoulders drooping a little. Is it really that straightforward, that the last few years - culminating in having to destroy his home to save it - have taken so much out of him that he just doesn't want to fight anymore?

Yeah. Believable. Tony nods a little, accepting Loki's response.

Aloud, Loki adds, "There are other benefits. My own illusions lack some of the... distance your device provides."

And, like the casualwear while making pancakes, it's a gesture of peace - Loki making himself vulnerable, theoretically (ha) unarmed.

It's something to work on for a couple of days, something more concrete than the anti-surveillance project, something that can occupy Tony's mind and keep him from his whirling, repetitive thoughts ('what if I'd--', 'why didn't he--', 'why did--' 'why--' 'why--').

Loki, it turns out, sees much further into the ultraviolet range than humans do - but he doesn't see quite as far into the longer, redder wavelengths. Recalibrating to take that into account isn't difficult, Tony just adjusts the filter on the camera recording comparison images so it aligns to the range of color Loki is actually seeing.

It makes Tony curious - he'd love to test a bunch of the other Asgardians and find out if their visual range is anything like Loki's.

They get BARF operating in a color range Loki is satisfied with, and a couple of benign quality assurance exercises go smoothly, so Tony declares it (and Loki) ready for unsupervised use and hands it over.

\--

Thor calls again, to follow up from the 'hey actually Loki's alive and if you find him please keep it that way' conversation they had last week. Tony is a bit hesitant to admit Loki's actually _at_ the Compound, but Thor already knows - apparently 'someone' is shielding the entire Compound from magic surveillance and that's kind of a dead giveaway.

Thor wants to talk to Loki. Tony's pretty hesitant about that, as well. "I'll ask," he finally agrees, and wanders through the Compound holding his phone.

Loki is in the kitchen, eating from a bag of snap-frozen stir-fry vegetables. Tony makes a mental note to order Loki his own freezer, and says, "Hey, I've got Thor on the line, do you want to--?"

Loki gives him a scathing look and walks off with his vegies.

Tony lifts the phone back up and tells the screen, "I don't think now's a great time."

Thor looks frustrated and disappointed but not entirely surprised. "He is taking the loss of Asgard hard."

"I think a few things have been piling up," Tony says diplomatically.

"Indeed." Thor closes his eye briefly, looking pretty tired himself. Then he straightens and levels a firm gaze on Tony. "Keep me informed of his wellbeing. We are still in discussions with your realm's many representatives, but I will spare whatever time I have."

Tony opens his mouth to make a sarcastic comment about being ordered around, but Thor has already hung up on him. Tony makes a face at the blank screen and mutters, "You're welcome, by the way."

\--

Later in the week, Rhodey 'reminds' him about a lunch with Pepper, which is a polite way of saying Rhodey boots him out of the Compound for a couple of hours. Tony would put up more of a fight except that it's been a while since his schedule matched up with Pepper's long enough for them to do more than exchange nods in passing.

Although, wasn't that supposed to still be true? With a frown, he says, "Don't you have that speech at Brown today?"

Pepper gives him a long-suffering look. "That was two weeks ago, Tony."

"...Right. I knew that."

"So." Pepper leans forward with a smile that sets off a whole symphony of alarm bells in Tony's head. "Jim tells me you have a new roommate."

That explains a lot. "Is this an intervention?" Tony leans back in his chair, folding his hands on the table in front of himself, like a physical barrier. "I'm not scheduled for another intervention until June."

"We moved it forward," Pepper says, dry as dust, then concern fills her eyes. "Tony--"

"It's under control," Tony says firmly. Here it is again, the boring part with the out loud explanations and convincing. "It's a favor to Thor, okay?" She opens her mouth and he amends his answer: "He's wide open, Pepper. It's the perfect opportunity to head off a serious threat--"

"I believe you," she says, and wait, what?

Tony blinks, letting his confusion show on his face. "So why are we having an intervention, exactly?"

Pepper gives a soft sigh. "If you think he can be... defused, then I believe you. But maybe it shouldn't be you who does it."

Tony pulls his hands back a little, insulted. "Hey, I'll have you know, I can be tactful--"

"Tony, we both know how this is going to go." She gives a sad little smile. "You're going to get used to having him around, and want to show off all your inventions for him, and start giving him things so he won't--"

"Hey, hey, whoa, no." Tony motions for her to stop. "I don't know what Rhodey's told you, but this, this thing, it's only temporary. I'm just giving the guy a place to stay and a couple of tools. Trust me, I'm not planning on getting invested."

Pepper gives him a look that-- is that seriously _pity_? "You have never in your _life_ not gotten invested in one of your projects," she tells him bluntly.

"That's completely untrue," Tony protests.

Pepper raises a disbelieving eyebrow in his direction. "And since he arrived, how much of your waking time have you spent either with him or working on something related to him?"

Tony opens his mouth, then closes it again. Okay... admittedly, that doesn't really help his argument. But like he said already, it's only temporary.

"You tried stepping back from the Avengers," Pepper says, oh so gentle in a way that grates on his nerves. "Did it hurt any less when things went badly? Then you threw yourself into that mentorship, and the boy's aunt--"

"Yes, thank you, I remember," Tony says tersely.

"She nearly took you to court, Tony," Pepper says patiently. "Are you going to pretend that didn't bother you on a personal level?"

Tony grits his teeth. He is not enjoying the direction this conversation is taking. "It's fine. She calmed down, we've got an understanding."

"You get invested," Pepper repeats implacably. "And then when things happen--"

"Which is exactly why I'm not going to do it this time!" Tony snaps, louder and sharper than he meant to.

Pepper gives him a look that speaks volumes. Tony folds his arms and glares at her stubbornly. He's not an idiot. He has many long years of experience in getting invested in people who leave or die or some combination of the two. Loki's not exactly likely to stick around and settle down.

There is no way Tony is going to let himself get invested.

\--

Tony figures he should check the logs of Loki's BARF sessions, just to make sure nothing weird is happening in Loki's brain.

Naturally, something weird is happening in Loki's brain.

Tony sighs and eyes the data resentfully. This didn't happen in the trial runs. Maybe he should do some more full-brain scans to get a better idea of what's going on.

To keep BARF compact but still able to process neural activity in real-time, it only monitors a fraction of the brain. In the version calibrated for Loki, that means five distinct small regions that they identified as being involved in recall and mental imagery. Except, in the sessions Tony hasn't been present for, one of those areas is spiking irregularly and another one is much more muted than it was before.

If the machine's still getting good enough data to construct an accurate projection, it might not matter. He goes to ask Loki about it.

It takes Loki a while to open his door; he looks eerily blank at first, then seems to blink to attention when he recognizes Tony. The BARF unit is hanging loosely from one of his hands, suggesting Tony interrupted a session.

"It's all going okay?" Tony asks, gesturing at the unit. "Color range, detail, focus...?"

Loki gives a polite nod. "Very well. My thanks."

"What about your brain?" Tony gestures at his own head. "Any weird sensations, headaches, feedback?"

Loki frowns a little. "No. Is that likely?"

"Just checking," Tony reassures him. "The calibration was a little rough and dirty, I just want to play it safe. If anything seems weird, let me know, but I'm not expecting it to."

Loki nods and starts to turn away, back to his room. Something prompts Tony to drag the conversation out a little further, to get a better read on how Loki's _really_ doing.

"They making any progress at the U.N.?" Tony knows very well the answer to that, but Loki's response might tell him something.

Loki's response, as it turns out, is a flat, "No," and an exaggerated roll of his eyes that speaks volumes.

"Let me guess, you had at least three different plans before the ship finished landing," Tony says dryly.

Loki huffs, clearly exasperated. "Start a rumor that one of your most reviled nations is negotiating to offer Thor's people citizenship in exchange for military assistance against its neighbors. Within hours I guarantee there would be dozens of nations clamoring to offer Asgard a home."

He's not wrong. It's very telling, though, that the first tactic that jumps to Loki's mind is to accept the fear that's directed at them and leverage it, rather than trying to set people at ease or earn their trust. Loki expects to be thought poorly of, and instead of trying to prove himself, he settles for just twisting whatever advantages he can out of it.

'Thor's people' is pretty telling, too.

Tony decides not to point either of those things out. Instead he says, "Wanna work on your initiation thing? I've got rocky road and salted caramel pecan."

That perks Loki up immediately. "By all means." He casts a sly smirk at Tony. "I find myself quite... insatiable."

\--

Since May Parker found out about the whole costumed hero thing, Peter's been on very restricted visiting hours. Well, first there was May tearing verbal strips off of Tony, then there was a significant period of no contact at all, but she's slowly cooling off. There are strict rules, though.

When Peter shows up at the Compound for this week's visit, Tony thinks about how pissed May was that he was giving Peter equipment behind her back, and then he thinks about the fact that he's harboring an alien refugee who could be construed by certain parties to be something of a war criminal.

"Uh, okay," he says at the doorway. "Listen, before you come in, there's something you need to know, and your aunt... doesn't. Necessarily. Need to know."

Peter looks at him doubtfully. "Now you _want_ me to lie to Aunt May?"

"No! Not lie," Tony says hastily. "Just... omit the truth. Temporarily."

Peter does a really great unimpressed, skeptical face. "Really."

"It's, the thing is, there's this guy... I kind of invited him to move in for a while..." Tony grimaces, trying to decide how to explain this. "He's not exactly..."

"Oh!" Peter's face clears in realization. "No, it's okay, Mister Stark, Aunt May's not homophobic, she wouldn't have a problem with that. Uh, I didn't know you were--" He stops himself abruptly and gives a very fake cough to cover it; "--er, seeing anyone."

"Smooth," Tony says dryly. "I'm not, actually. Seeing anyone, I mean, not the other thing. I'm definitely an equal opportunity kind of guy. But that's got nothing to do with... you know what, let's maybe not have this conversation on the doorstep."

"Yeah, no, that'd be great," Peter agrees hastily, and follows him inside.

So, Peter gets introduced to Loki - which is to say that Peter sees Loki and gets a puzzled look on his face and says, "You look kind of familiar. Do I know you?"

Loki tells him, "I led a small invasion of your realm a few years ago."

Tony feels some small part of himself throw its hands up in defeat. "Really? You had to lead with that?"

Peter blinks, eyes wide, and says in a slightly strained voice, "I'm really not sure how I'm supposed to react right now."

"Listen," Tony starts, with absolutely no idea what he's going to follow up with. He falls back on instinct to guide his words. "It's... a complicated situation--"

Loki steps forward, looking uncharacteristically solemn and serious. "I know I have been an enemy to your people in the past," he tells Peter. His voice is low and soothing, almost hypnotic. "I am sure many among you would say that what has since befallen me is just and righteous. Which makes it all the more striking that Stark has offered me aid in healing the wounds in my mind. I assure you, my gratitude is very real, and I have no intention of giving him cause to regret his generosity."

It sounds utterly sincere, and Peter is clearly eating it up because life hasn't beaten the soft-heartedness out of him yet. Tony mouths ' _nice work_ ' at Loki. Loki gives him an ambiguous smile back.

It occurs to Tony that Loki is actually treating Peter more seriously than he did Rhodey or Strange. Could Loki actually be... good with kids? That's a slightly terrifying thought, but nothing that takes place while Peter is there disproves it. Loki is patient and answers all Peter's questions and acts like Peter's opinion is important. It doesn't take long until Peter is basically - metaphorically - eating out of Loki's hand.

 _You smooth bastard,_ Tony thinks with some admiration. He wonders if he can find a way to use Loki against some of the legislators who have been stalling reactor builds. Maybe not; it seems like the sort of tactic that works on people with hearts, not people with wallets inside their ribcages.

It's oddly enjoyable to watch, all the same. Like videos of perfectly interlocking cogs just endlessly rotating. Weirdly relaxing.

\--

After Peter's gone, Loki goes still and quiet for a little while. Tony bustles around, finding things to tidy and letting Loki work through whatever's on his mind. After a while, he spoons some mango-flavored ice cream into a bowl and sets it on the table in front of Loki. Loki startles and looks down at the ice cream with an unreadable expression.

"Have a snack," Tony suggests, and goes back to pretending to clean.

The silence extends a little longer. Loki makes a start on the ice cream, moving slowly. Tony has dusted the same shelf three times.

"I keep asking myself," Loki says suddenly, not looking in Tony's direction, "why I joined them after Asgard's... end. I'd done my part, there was nothing further they could need from me. I had the means... I could have gone anywhere. Why go to people who distrust and despise me...?"

"Is it because you really love your brother and your country?" Tony says, trying to sound more hopeful than he really feels.

"Oh, I do, but that's not the reason." Loki stares at the wall, expression slipping into something exhausted and sad. "Asgard burned and I turned loose the flames that devoured it. And I knew... if I went anywhere else, then when Thor saw me again, he would not tell me, 'Loki, I'm glad you survived the destruction I asked you to carry out!' He would say, 'Loki, how cruel and malicious of you to fake your death. How terrible you are, how selfish...'" He pauses, staring off into the distance. "Again."

Tony feels his eyebrows lift at that. It's not exactly the opening line he would have expected from a guy who had a lock of his (presumed) dead brother's _hair_ braided in. Sounds like the big reunion didn't go particularly well. "He make a habit of that? Accusing you of faking your death?"

Loki rests his spoon on the edge of the ice cream bowl. He says tiredly, "You have no idea."

Ouch. Tony looks him over. Eyes unfocused, shoulders slumped. Loki is the very picture of the world's most depressing roommate. That definitely won't do.

"Hey." Tony raps the table between them to get Loki's attention. There's really only one thing to say. He waits until Loki is looking at him properly, full eye contact, then he says, "Don't take this as something deep and personal, but, uh. I'm glad you survived."

Loki recoils a little, eyes flaring wide and startled. His lips part, but he doesn't say anything, just stares at Tony and blinks rapidly as wetness wells up in his eyes. He looks like he's desperately trying to believe it's not a trap.

That's messed up. No one, no matter what they've done, should go around believing that everyone would prefer they were dead. Not even the people that everyone _would_ prefer dead. Everyone should have at least one person who's willing to say 'Come to think of it, you being alive? Turns out I'm in favor.'

Tony's not getting invested. He's just being a halfway decent person.

That's _all_.

\--


	2. Chapter Two

Stage one of the Magic Surveillance Jammer (working title: Operation Jim-jams) mostly involves scanning Loki on every wavelength known to mankind while he claims he is hiding himself, and trying to identify... well, anything.

It's a lengthy process. Loki is surprisingly patient, and Tony does his best to keep it that way by taking frequent breaks and plying Loki with frozen desserts. The healthy dose of spite that seems to be motivating Loki on this project is probably also helping a lot.

They do a bit each day, and every couple of days Thor calls to check how Loki's doing, and Tony looks at Loki's body language and says, "Now's not a great time."

The fifth time Thor calls, Loki looks down at the ground and then sighs and extends his arm. "I may as well get this over with."

"You sure?" Tony says dubiously, but Loki just looks impatient, so he hands the phone over and steps sideways out of the way.

He does glance down at Loki's free hand, and with absolutely no surprise sees a tiny 'stay here' gesture.

Well, it's a start, anyway.

"Loki," Thor says, with a mixture of surprise and relief. Maybe he feels uncomfortable about the relief, because almost immediately he tries to make a joke out of it: "I had wondered if you would hide away forever, brother."

Tony winces quietly in the background, remembering Loki's tired prediction that Thor would never say something like 'I'm glad you survived'. That makes a lot more sense suddenly; Thor would probably assume it went without saying, and all Loki would notice would be that Thor _didn't say it_.

"I'm still considering it," Loki says with a tight, hard smile.

Thor falters a little in the face of Loki's unwelcoming expression. "Ah... well. Is Stark treating you well?"

"He is a most gracious host," Loki says blandly. Then he wrinkles his nose briefly as if he's rethinking that answer, and adds, "In his way."

Tony folds his arms and narrows his eyes. He can get Loki back for that one later.

"Indeed, in his way," Thor agrees hastily, trying to chuckle along, although since Loki's not chuckling it's just kind of sad and awkward.

Come to think of it, he can get Thor back for that later, too. Tony is absolutely gracious. He's gracious as _fuck_ , for crying out loud.

Thor stumbles over a few more words, then finally comes up with, "How fare you?"

Loki purses his lips and examines the image of Thor for several seconds. Eventually, he asks, "Do you recall when you were banished, and I sent the Destroyer to Midgard?"

"Yes," Thor says, with a certain tension in his jaw and a hard look coming into his eyes.

Loki tilts his head to the side, still watching Thor intently. "That pretty speech you gave, how you could not understand what you had done to wrong me but you were very sorry?"

Uh oh. Tony recognizes the 'you don't even know what you're apologizing for' complaint from, sadly, more than one past fling. He has a feeling this isn't going to go well for Thor.

"Indeed," Thor says confidently; "and for all your crimes I mean it still. However I have injured you--"

"You do _not_ ," Loki interrupts, with a tightly controlled sneer. "You cannot be sorry for you do not believe anything you have done is wrong. You take pleasure in my humiliation while holding your own pride sacred, preach at me that I am beneath you, and then have the gall to claim you have _changed_." He gives a clipped, bitter laugh. "Changed like the tides, perhaps, which rise and fall every day and can be mapped and charted in their predictability."

"I do not call you beneath me--" Thor starts indignantly.

"Oh, only that you think you have any standing to advise me of my _potential_. Of how I could grow, and be so much _more_ than the God of Mischief--"

Thor's eyes soften, and he reaches out as if to touch Loki's face through the screen. "You could. You can be, I know it--"

"Like the King of Asgard perhaps?"

Thor drops his hand, scowling irritably. "Is this pettiness over the throne? By the Norns, Loki--"

"Do I have too much ambition or too little? Make up your mind, Thor. Or is it that I should strive only for what you deem appropriate? I should grow, but only as you allow or command?" Loki's voice is rising. "I am not an orchard tree for you to hack and prune!"

"You twist my words and find insult where none was intended, as usual--"

Loki shakes his head and fixes a sharp glare on the screen. "You want me to be 'more' than the God of Mischief. Tell me, Thor. Were you often lectured on how you could be 'more' than a mighty warrior, more than the embodiment of nature's wild force? Were you told that being God of Thunder was something pitiful and wretched and simply not _enough_?"

Thor's face twists in confusion and irritation. "Of course not-- I did not call you those things!"

"And so we are come to the heart of it: you cannot be sorry, for you still believe nothing you have done is a wrong, and everything I have done is. Oh, Midgard's in chaos, Loki, but wanting to do something about it proves you're a terrible king. Oh, the Nine Realms are in chaos, Loki, but not doing anything about it proves you're a terrible king. Oh, I've changed so much, Loki, as I go on behaving exactly as I've always done; why can't you change too and just _know your place_? Keep your pretty words, _brother_ , for I am no more and no less than who I am and I will not return to your shadow. Until you understand that, I have nothing further to say."

Thor starts to protest; Loki taps the screen sharply and the call cuts off.

Tony lets about half a second pass in silence, then says brightly, "Feel better getting that out of your system?"

"Not as much as I was hoping," Loki says, shoulders drooping as he hands the phone back.

"Don't get me wrong, you do take the worst _possible_ interpretation of whatever he says." Tony's had plenty of practice being on each side of that equation; it's not exactly difficult to spot it playing out here. "And I definitely have to put in a vote for the whole _not_ ruling Midgard thing. But I can see how you'd hate that condescending-benevolent shtick - are they all slow learners in Asgard or is that a Thor specialty?"

Loki actually pauses for a moment, taking that question seriously. "In comparison to Midgard, yes, I imagine we... they... would seem slow. I was... considered capricious, for making new choices too swiftly."

"Ah," Tony murmurs, filing that away for further reflection later. (Species differences or just culture and personality? Nature or nurture? When Thor was banished and 'made mortal' did that make him more like a human mentally or just a much less powerful Asgardian?)

To lighten the mood a little, he quips, "I liked your line about being an orchard tree, by the way. Good imagery, very snappy." Pause for effect, a wink and a leer: "I bet you'd have great tasting nuts."

Loki gives him a withering look, but the corner of his mouth twitches. Ha. Tony doesn't understand why people waste so much energy trying to pretend they don't think he's funny. He's _hilarious_.

After a moment, Loki says contemplatively, "Thor's right about one thing."

Tony raises his eyebrows curiously. "What's that?"

"I _am_ the God of Mischief." Loki nods to himself. "I have spent too long trying to be something else."

Okay. That's... either a good thing or a bad thing. "Mischief, that sounds nice, mischief is fun, right? Not like... violent invasions?" Tony asks, just to check.

Loki smirks at him. "Oh, yes. Mischief is definitely _fun_."

Tony has a sudden sinking feeling that he didn't ask the right question.

\--

Loki, quite understandably, takes an interest in television coverage of the Asgardian refugee issue. Less understandably, he seems to deliberately pick the trashiest pundits and conspiracy theorists to watch. Tony has a hunch that Loki gets a kick out of people foaming at the mouth.

"--leader has been coming and going as he likes for years already, never respecting our right to govern our borders, and he's asking permission _now_? Because they want something! They call themselves gods - how long until they start demanding to be worshipped? There is only one God, ladies and gentlemen, and He doesn't come asking for handouts!"

Rhodey gives an irritated snort and mutters, " 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' "

Tony leans against the doorframe to make it clear he's silently judging both of them. Maybe not so silently. "You know there are real news channels you can watch, right?" he tells Loki.

"...the very _definition_ of an illegal alien..."

"He seems very upset," Loki observes, a smirk playing around the edges of his mouth. "I do hope he takes heed of his blood pressure."

Maybe crazy just calls to crazy. Tony is polite enough not to say that out loud.

"You wanna call them people? Well, here's what I say - people have a duty to respect the laws of this fine nation! If those fancy lawyers want to write their declarations--"

Tony can't help but snort and join in the mocking. "You studied law at Yale, you disingenuous son of a bitch."

"--and say these _aliens_ are people, then we charge that king for every crime he's committed! Lock him up!"

Loki lifts his head and looks more intently at the screen, pressing his lips together.

Rhodey winces, looking simultaneously disturbed and incredulous. "Oh, that'd go down well with Thor."

"I'm... _mostly_ sure the current government is not that stupid," Tony says, scratching at his goatee. "Not over a few border violations."

"There are other governments at play, though, aren't there?" Loki says, doing his best to sound disinterested. His eyes are too focused on the guy on the TV; it gives him away.

"We hunted Hydra with NATO through half of Europe, so, yeah," Tony admits. "Thor was technically never given an official right to act on NATO's behalf. He didn't have a solid legal identity and I'm pretty sure everyone involved decided it was easier to just look the other way. I think someone talked about recording him as military equipment as a joke. You retroactively grant legal personhood to aliens, then everything Thor did becomes assault, murder, destruction of private property..."

Loki takes a breath as if he's about to say something, then pauses. Instead of whatever it was, he says unconvincingly, "Well, I'm sure Thor will figure something out."

Rhodey looks at Loki skeptically. "We have met Thor, you know."

Tony hides a smile. If Rhodey's making jokes in front of Loki, even small ones, it's only a matter of time until he accepts him. And agrees that Tony was right all along. Not that the second part is as important, it's just an added bonus.

"Is it likely, do you think?" Loki asks, not quite pulling off an air of nonchalant curiosity. "That anyone would bother to enforce such trivialities against him?"

Tony grimaces. He meets Rhodey's eyes, and Rhodey makes the same kind of expression back at him.

"Hard to say," Tony admits.

"Politics," Rhodey agrees.

Tony nods. "Leverage."

Loki sighs and sinks back in his chair a little, shooting a little glare at the man on the television. "It's about time someone held Thor to account for his actions, anyway," he mutters.

Tony has been trying really hard to keep out of the whole Asgardian negotiation mess. After the minor catastrophe that surrounded the introduction of the Accords, and the lectures he got from - well, everyone he knew - he's been trying really hard to step back and _not_ try to solve everyone else's problems. Let people face consequences, come up with their own solutions.

But crappy legal issues around being recognized as human - or human-equivalent - isn't exactly a reasonable consequence for anything Thor has or hasn't done. And there's an entire shipful of alien refugees who don't deserve to be screwed over just because their king visited Earth before there was a legal framework for it.

And more importantly, he invited Loki to stay here, so he has a certain duty of care - and Loki's transparently worried about Thor and the Asgardians to a degree that's actually a little embarrassing.

"I suppose what he'd need," Tony finds himself saying, "is some sort of declaration that Asgardians are legally people, but that incidents from before they were legally recognized as people can't be charged as crimes because they weren't recognized as people _then_. Probably would go hand in hand with the U.N. voting to recognize Asgard as a country so that they can enter into treaties."

"Korg, too," Loki murmurs, brow furrowed absently.

Tony's not sure that translated into English correctly. "What?"

"Korg," Loki repeats. "He's Kronan. All the fighters from Sakaar, in fact - there are members of a half dozen different alien species on that ship, who would need to be recognized under your laws."

Rhodey says, drawn into the conversation, "So, any species that meets a certain level of sentience--?"

"Never happen," Tony interrupts, shaking his head. There is not a country in the world that would agree to that broad of a definition. "Animal rights activists. Say goodbye to bacon." God, logging and mining companies would fight it every step of the way - if chimpanzees can learn sign language, someone will argue they can own property. "Maybe word it around being sentient and not from Earth? There have to have been people who have been working on this, what does SETI say?"

Even opening the door to expanding the definition is going to start trouble. Tony can foresee some serious legal action over rainforests coming up in the future. But again - he doesn't have to solve every problem.

The immediate one, though, of getting the Asgardians and whatever other species are on that ship recognized as legally people - that's just basic decency. No one can fault Tony if he has a few words in a few ears. Suggests to a few people that they don't want to overlook the scientific and economic benefits that could be gained here.

Of course, governments will drag their feet because as long as aliens aren't people they don't have basic rights, which means Tony's going to have to try to apply pressure in the right places to nudge the negotiations along. Once there's an agreement about where the Asgardians will live, governments will be less worried about somehow incurring an obligation by legally recognizing them.

The tech on the spaceship is probably Thor's best leverage; they don't have intellectual property rights until they're recognized as people, so Thor needs to make clear he's withholding all knowledge until they get some guarantees.

Tony's so wrapped up in the politics and thinking about where he does and doesn't have any influence, and which parts of his influence might actually be _useful_ , that it takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize what has just happened.

He stops short and stares at Loki, impressed. "Oh, that was smooth."

"What?" Loki asks in confusion that might even be genuine.

Tony shakes his head, a grin escaping him. Not many people can manipulate him like that. And then Loki makes a few frowning faces at a television screen and has Tony falling all over himself to ensure that there's legislation in place ensuring sentient aliens can't be charged for anything they did on Earth in the past. Why not just Asgardians? That's right, Loki's adopted. Oh, that was _masterful_.

"You utter bastard," Tony says admiringly. "I might need to hire you."

Loki looks confused for a moment longer, then drops the act and smirks back at him. "I believe that I would have to establish a legal identity, first."

Tony shouldn't really let him get away with it.

On the other hand, it's hilarious. And if it nearly got by _Tony_ , then none of the U.N. negotiators are going to think about the legal implications for Loki's invasion. After all, _Loki isn't on the Asgardian ship_.

"Alright, Prongs," Tony says, more entertained than he probably should be, considering what Loki's crimes-maybe-not-crimes are. "I'll probably regret this, but I'll talk to some people, see if I can get the ball rolling for, uh, Asgard and whatever other alien species we might meet."

"I'm sure Thor will appreciate it," Loki says, smiling up at him with a glint of humor and something else... something that might even be sincere gratitude.

\--

In retrospect, letting Loki get away with that shameless ploy around whether aliens can commit crimes before they're recognized as people probably opened the door to all the fuckery that follows after.

Tony probably shouldn't have made it quite so obvious that he finds Loki funny.

The Asgardian refugee negotiations are still pretty long and tedious, and Tony is working several steps removed from any of the major players - just trying to make sure the right whispers get to the right ears. That might be how he gets completely blindsided by the plea deals granted to the (former) Avengers and associates who trashed Bucharest and Leipzig.

"They what?" he says, staring at Pepper.

She looks a little uncomfortable. "It's hard to trace the decision back cleanly--"

Clearly, Stark Industries not having an international espionage division is an oversight that needs to be rectified.

"--but it seems like once it became clear the Asgardians were going to be accepted on Earth, world leaders started wanting to make sure there were people around who could feasibly oppose them if things went... wrong."

That makes an annoying amount of sense, and Tony resents Pepper deeply for bringing anything like logic into this.

It's not that he wants them kept out of the country, exactly. He just... doesn't want them to be in the country. Or at least he doesn't want to _know_ they're in the country, or think about them being in the country, or think about what happened, or deal with any of it in any kind of healthy, constructive way.

Basically he just wants to continue existing in complete denial for a while longer, and is that so wrong?

"Tony, Tones, it's okay," Rhodey tries to tell him, back at the Compound, but Tony isn't in the mood to hear it.

"It's not okay. How is this okay? What am I supposed to do about this? They're going to--"

"Nothing," Rhodey interrupts.

"Nothing? What, they come back wanting to talk and I just sit there knitting socks for orphans? Yeah, that's gonna go down well."

Rhodey shrugs. "Maybe not the knitting. But things got nasty there, man. If you don't want to see them, then don't see them. It's not like you can't change your mind later."

That... is a really appealing idea. Admittedly the plea deals involve home detention but no one said that home has to be the Compound. Most of them have other homes and the ones that don't can figure something out. "I could knit socks for orphans if I wanted," Tony insists.

Rhodey nods politely. "Sure you could."

Loki leans against a doorframe, looking all tall and casual and again in the unfairly attractive leather pants. "I would have thought you'd be glad of their proximity."

Loki has a bit of a tendency to show up out of nowhere in the middle of conversations, and Tony is kind of hoping that if they keep on not giving a reaction, it will eventually become boring.

"Sure," he answers instead, as if Loki has been standing there all along. "About as glad as you would be if Thor moved in next door. That is: maybe one day, but right now that space is being used to store emotional baggage."

The corner of Loki's mouth quirks a little, but he tilts his head and asks, "Isn't it better to have them on hand, in case of...?"

Something shifts into alignment in the back of Tony's mind. He turns slightly, focusing his attention more closely on Loki. It reminds him too much of what Pepper said, about things 'going wrong' and world leaders being afraid of having Asgardians around and, oh, dammit. "Did _you_ do this?"

Loki blinks. "Don't be absurd. How would I have anything to do with it? _Why_?"

It's the 'why' that clinches it, for Tony. He sighs, frustrated and annoyed but mostly just really, really tired. "It's some kind of screwed up gesture of good faith, isn't it." It's not a question.

Loki shifts slightly and looks at the wall and says huffily, "You have a very poor opinion of my intelligence," which isn't a denial.

For crying out loud. If Tony wanted back-up while Loki's here, he would arrange it himself. Or just _not invited Loki to live here_. He doesn't need his problems solved for him behind his back without so much as a courtesy tip-off. Not even problems - imaginary problems. Has he given any impression of being _concerned_ about Loki's presence? He's not a child, dammit.

Tony scowls, knowing that telling Loki off is going to send the wrong message but really wanting to do it anyway. Instead he decides grumpily, "I'm going to go weld something."

\--

Tony may or may not spend some time singing along to Gloria Gaynor in his workshop. It can't be proven.

There is an incredibly awkward phone call during which Steve and Tony establish that yes, it is in fact Too Fucking Soon to resolve things and perhaps they will talk again at a later date. Much, much later.

Tony locks himself in for a while and when he finally emerges, he's brandishing a pair of neon yellow socks. "I told Rhodey I could do it!" So he made a robot to do the actual knitting; so what.

"Oh, look," Loki says dryly. "Somebody freed the house elf."

Tony shoots him a glare. "Ok, one: the pop culture references? Kind of my thing. You're not even _from_ here. Two: if anyone around here is a house elf, it's the _actual magic user_ who is, last time I checked, not legally a person."

Loki blinks at him and says in an accusing tone, "That was a little hostile."

"It wasn't quite as mean in my head," Tony agrees. "To be fair, you started it."

"True enough," Loki admits after a brief pause.

Tony continues on to find Rhodey, unsurprised when Loki tags along behind him. They find Rhodey in the gym, working on his upper body strength. Tony brandishes the socks and says smugly, "Who's laughing now, huh?"

"Yeah," Rhodey says, utterly deadpan as Tony forces the socks into his hands. "You sure showed me."

Loki murmurs something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, "Dobby's free!"

Tony tries not to choke on his laughter.

\--

The neuro logs of Loki's BARF sessions are still showing that weird brain activity. Tony decides to check the video logs just to be safe. It would be pretty terrible to offer Loki a safe place to get himself together and then accidentally fry his brain.

The first video shows Loki moving through a dim room with lots of objects on plinths and-- that's the Tesseract.

Loki ignores the Tesseract and picks up a large horned skull that he puts in a burning brazier. The large horned skull becomes an even larger fire demon, because apparently that kind of thing is perfectly normal to Asgardians. Loki backs away and then tries to run, and the fire monster grabs him and _oh god why is Loki using BARF to watch himself burn to death?!_

"You are _messed up_ ," Tony says out loud, in disbelief.

Well, maybe after Loki got that out of his system, the other sessions were a little more productive.

Tony checks the files. The other sessions were not more productive. Over and over, Loki recreated the same scenario: he unleashes the fire demon thing, it makes a couple of taunts about finally defeating Asgard, and Loki doesn't have time to get away before it kills him.

This is how Asgard was destroyed, Tony realizes. But Loki _isn't_ dead, so how did-- oh, shit, Loki has the Tesseract.

Tony groans and rubs at his eyes. Now he has to decide whether to do anything about it. Well, if Loki needed the Tesseract to escape then Thor has probably dealt with it already. As for Loki constantly recreating this doomsday scenario just so he can pretend he went down with the ship... realm... it's probably not healthy but it's not really Tony's business.

He bites his lip and looks at the screen, seeing how many files there are, how many times Loki has done this to himself.

It's none of his business. Just let it go.

Maybe buy some more frozen foods.

\--

The knitting robot is called MCFLY, and it is a dirty traitor. It was supposed to just sit in Tony's workshop and, occasionally, knit socks in whatever garish color of yarn Tony could find to feed into it.

It doesn't have wheels. Tony didn't give it wheels for a very good reason. If it can't move, it can't get into trouble, right?

Ha.

Tony probably should have expected trouble when, every time Loki came to the workshop for Operation Jim-jams, he detoured to MCFLY to pat it and compliment it on whatever monstrosity it was knitting at the time. Then Loki started feeding it yarn. _Weird_ colors, hues that didn't seem like Tony's eyes were working quite right. Tony tried replacing the creepy yarn with some nice skeins of hand-dyed merino, but MCFLY determinedly rejected them.

Now it's reached the point that Tony keeps finding MCFLY _outside_ the workshop. If Loki's watching television, MCFLY will be next to him clacking away. If Loki's in the kitchen, MCFLY will be set up in a corner, knitting something in a shade that looks like it might make the walls start bleeding. Heaven knows what MCFLY does while Loki's using BARF.

The obvious assumption would be that Loki is doing it, except that sometimes Tony is _sure_ that Loki hasn't moved and yet MCFLY has somehow just... appeared.

In short, traitor.

\--

There is a letter from a lawyer addressed 'to whom it may concern' politely asking whoever's in charge of the Avengers to get in touch. More specifically, whoever's in charge of the 'diversion scheme' to get in touch regarding application criteria, for a client who stole some money and would much rather be given a fancy high-tech suit to fight bad guys than double-bunk in a concrete cell.

"What on Earth?" Tony says blankly. "Why would anyone think that was a real... what on Earth?"

"Let me see," Rhodey says, pulling the letter from him, and Tony lets him. Rhodes scans it pretty quickly and frowns with distaste. "Yeah. I can see how they got that idea."

"From _where_ , a Goodwill bin?" Tony says, getting annoyed on behalf of his teammates now. "I mean, you're a decorated veteran--"

"Who 'stole'," Rhodey does the air quotes with his fingers and everything, "an armor from you in a highly publicized showdown. Wilson stole from the Air Force to become Falcon. Rogers is famous specifically for falsifying enlistment documents and disobeying orders. Romanoff and Barton both had history when SHIELD brought them in. Maximoff was HYDRA, for fuck's sake, and I don't know about that Ant guy they brought along to Germany but wasn't there something about embezzlement?"

Rhodey pauses, then adds dryly, "You know, on second thought, you bringing Loki in makes a lot of sense."

Tony wants to object to so many things at once that he's actually speechless for a second while he tries to prioritize them. It wasn't _like that_. It was just... those were just... coincidences. In the meantime he says petulantly, "Bruce and Thor aren't criminals."

"Bruce was on the run, and didn't Thor first meet SHIELD when he was _exiled_?" Rhodey says, and there's a little twinkle in his eye that gives away that he's just messing with Tony at this point.

Tony rolls his eyes. "Fine, so Vision's the only pure and good Avenger, let's phone him up and ask if he's running a secret diversion scheme-- why are you smiling, I don't trust you when you smile like that."

"There's one other Avenger," Rhodey drawls, this really annoying sing-song tone and that smug grin he gets when he thinks he's got one over on Tony. "Who wasn't recruited for breaking the law."

Oh, no. "Oh, no," Tony says, shaking his head as he waves a finger at Rhodey. "You do not get to pin the 'responsible adult' label on me--"

"Tony Stark," Rhodey croons obnoxiously, "you pillar of society--"

"Slander and lies, scurrilous lies--"

"--fine and upstanding world citizen--"

"This is defamation of character and I won't stand for it."

"You're basically my parole officer," Rhodey says, mostly straight-faced but not quite keeping the laughter out of his eyes. "It's a good thing you're here to keep me on the straight and narrow, Tones, because I was off the rails."

"Multiple border violations, restricted airspace infringement, reckless endangerment, reckless discharge of a firearm. Flat out murder of some terrorists and warlords, and I definitely broke the rules of the Monaco Historic Grand Prix." Tony pauses, grimacing a little. "Okay, come to think of it, that Doctor Weird might have had a point."

"That can't be news to you, you've been using money and sheer ballsiness to get out of trouble since you were fifteen. Probably even before then." Rhodey starts balling up the letter.

"Are you just going to throw that out?" Tony says in surprise.

Rhodey looks down at his hands, then at Tony. "Uh, yes?"

Huh. Well, yeah, fair enough. "Carry on," Tony says with a nod. He starts to turn away, then a better idea strikes him. Clearly, he is not the appropriate recipient for this letter. "Actually. Do we know where Rogers is serving his home detention?"

Rhodey grins.

\--

Okay, so maybe forwarding the letter to Steve is a little passive-aggressive. Tony is, as it turns out, completely fine with that.

Then a couple more show up. One of them's even addressed to Steve by name.

"Are these... is this a thing now?" Tony stares at Rhodey in distress. Is this really what 'the Avengers' means to people? Not the two separate times they _saved the world_ , but as some kind of club of... people who should have gone to prison? "What are we supposed to do about this?"

Rhodey shrugs. "Nothing."

"Noth-- is that your answer for everything now? Just, an all-purpose tactic? Because I've gotta tell you, I can see some potential problems." Tony starts to shove his hand in his hair, then remembers he still has a letter in that hand. A snatch of text jumps out at him: ' _...charges indicate, my client is capable in the face of danger..._ '

This is ludicrous. The whole thing is... it's patently absurd and yet these people are _serious_ and what does that say about the Avengers?

"Look, man," Rhodey says patiently. "You made damn sure you were not in charge and that everyone knew it, don't think I didn't notice that. So congratulations - you're not on the hook for Cap's shitty recruitment decisions. Not that your recruitment decisions don't suck in a whole different way--"

Tony grimaces at the pointed reminder of the double telling off he received after Rhodey and Pepper found out how old Spider-kid is. Or more importantly, isn't. Turns out they both assumed he was in college rather than high school.

That might actually have been the angriest either of them have been with Tony since... probably since the birthday party fiasco when he thought he was going to die. Tony can kind of see where they're coming from - especially once they started throwing around phrases like 'international law' and 'child soldier' - but honestly they could try a little harder to see where _he_ was coming from.

When Tony was fifteen, he _was_ at college. He was finally living... not unsupervised exactly, but he was mostly responsible for himself. No more nannies. It was the major transition to the more adult-ish part of his life and he kind of forgot that not all smart teenagers are in charge of their lives to that extent.

Or, you know. Legally able to consent to things like crossing international borders to apprehend armed fugitives.

Rhodey gets back on track after that little jab. "These letters? They belong to Rogers, and you know it. He saw exactly how that playbook worked out for SHIELD, and then he turned around and all but put up a sign saying 'HYDRA sleeper agents, apply here'. This isn't your problem, Tones. This isn't life or death. Just... let it play out."

"Huh." Tony considers that. It kind of goes against every bone in his body. When he calls Pepper, she backs Rhodey up. When he calls Happy-- well, Happy suggests a much more _aggressive_ plan of action (guy might have some overprotectiveness issues, so what's new).

Somehow. Somehow Tony finds himself actually biting his tongue and _not_ phoning his PR team or legal team or any other team except the mail screening team to let them know that any more of those letters can be forwarded directly to Steve.

Then he goes to pour himself a glass of scotch, because he desperately needs and deserves one. God, this is exactly the kind of thing that would be hilarious if it was happening to _anyone else_ \--

Tony stops short.

"Oh, that son of a bitch."

Dammit. Mischief gods have the _worst_ ways of expressing gratitude.

\--

It's not unusual for Tony to hear loud voices at all hours of the day and wander into the lounge to find Loki watching truly awful television. MCFLY being there is newer, but he's stopped being surprised by it: Loki in Asgardian casualwear, absently patting the nearest part of MCFLY while snickering as a bunch of talking heads try to infuriate each other into heart attacks.

"It's racist, is what it is. My cousin's been on the inside three years now, but if he was white and good-looking they'd sign him up to the Avengers. 'Avengers' my ass. I don't see them avenging _my_ neighborhood."

"Oh, here we go, I don't like something, time to pull the race card. Samuel Wilson, African American, stole military equipment from the Air Force and instead of getting shot for treason he became a member of a team of celebrities and billionaires--"

"My God, everyone, racism's over! A black man got to be friends with Captain America! Nothing is ever racist again!"

"You're being sarcastic because you know you don't have any real arguments. The fact is--"

Tony says, "I can't believe you're watching this without bleeding out of your ears."

Loki's answering grin is pretty close to an outright smirk. "You Midgardians are so delightfully chaotic. Wherever I look, there's such entertainment."

"Yeah," Tony says wryly, "Midgardians. No outside influence whatsoever, right?"

Loki widens his eyes in his standard trying-to-look-innocent-but-not-actually-trying expression. "I'm sure I don't know what you're implying."

Sometimes, Tony is tempted to unleash Loki on Reddit, just to see what happens. So far he has managed to suppress that slightly misanthropic impulse.

\--

The negotiations continue. People from all around the world weigh in; some of them have a clue what they're talking about, some... less so. Advocacy groups for existing refugees - human ones - are outraged. Some of them phrase it more politely. A few big names from Hollywood put their two cents in to get their names in the papers and keep their earning power fresh. 

Maybe Tony's just cynical. Maybe the plight of alien refugees is really meaningful to them, who knows? Matt Damon sure seems passionate about the Asgardian people, weird as it may be. He's been particularly vocal in their support.

An agreement seems to be getting closer. The speed of it is ludicrous in comparison to the people crammed into camps around the world, but those people don't have the promise of alien technology to barter.

Tony wonders if Thor knew about those people when he decided to come to Earth. If it would have made a difference. He keeps that thought to himself.

\--

The problem with having those letters automatically forwarded to Steve is that Tony is completely unaware Adrian Toomes has written to them until the guy makes a Heartfelt Emotional Plea(TM) on television.

Even worse, Peter is at the Compound for a visit when it happens.

"I've got a family. My little girl, she doesn't matter as much as theirs? My girl Liz, explain to me how she's somehow worth less than the kids of a man who came out of retirement just to _physically attack_ his former team-mates. How is my girl worth less than the girl of a repeated felon who didn't even have custody of his kid to begin with? I'm supposed to believe he deserves more time with his daughter than I do, just because some scientist gave him a fancy high-tech suit? Hey, I built some high-tech wings. Built them - I didn't steal them from the Air Force like that Falcon guy.

"So come on - I want one of these so-called Avengers to look my girl in the eye and tell her why their kids deserve a dad and mine doesn't.

"I just wanna talk to the man - or woman - who makes the decision. Whoever looks at someone who's committed a crime and decides whether they become an Avenger or whether they go to prison. I'm not asking for anything other people haven't been given. I'm just asking for a chance."

"Wow," Peter says.

"I know," Tony agrees. "That was a real sack of--"

"He's got a point," Peter finishes at the same time.

They both look at each other.

"Um, no he doesn't," Tony says. "He's a criminal. Criminals go to jail."

"So why aren't Hawkeye and Ant-Man in jail?" Peter's brow furrows. "Or Captain America or the Falcon or--"

"Yeah yeah okay okay." Tony sighs. "Life's not fair. What do you want to do, let out every criminal who has kids?"

Peter shifts uncomfortably for a minute (seriously, a full minute). "Do you think Spider-man should make a statement?"

" _No_ ," Tony yelps-- er, yells. In a completely adult way. "No I definitely do not think that would help _anything_ , please don't do that."

He really needs to get rid of all the televisions. Maybe that would help.

\--

Although Tony has news alerts set up for anything Avenger-related, there are so many think-pieces and opinion columns that it's not worth rushing to check every time a new one pings. Once in a while he'll skim the accumulated headlines in case anything looks like a potential issue.

Sometimes other keywords get things bumped further up the list.

That's how Tony finds himself reading a speculative dumpster fire titled _CAPTAIN HYDRA: THE PERFECT DOUBLE AGENT?_ with a hollow, icy feeling washing through his gut. Not even a tiny part of him wants to laugh.

His feet take him to Loki's door. He knocks and he doesn't know what he's going to say but Loki takes one look at him and shepherds him to a cream-colored sofa. Loki has a sofa in his room. Huh. And it's not green or dark leather.

"What is wrong?" Loki asks him in a low, serious voice.

"You've got to stop," Tony says. "It's not... it's too far."

Loki looks quizzically at him. Tony remembers that he's holding a tablet and pulls up the stupid editorial. "That, the HYDRA thing. Look, I get the irony and that it seems like it's funny but it's-- you don't understand what HYDRA means. What they represent."

He can remember those rare times when he had a fraction of Howard's attention - sideways mentions of the war, understated references to cruelty and 'the worst mankind is capable of'. Just enough context for a smart young kid to figure out that if Nazis were evil, HYDRA Nazis were evil raised to the nth power.

_'There are always people,' Howard said seriously, so serious, eyes dark and focused in a way that held all of Tony's attention, 'who find an excuse to push someone else down because they think it'll help them get closer to the top. And if you let them get away with it, Tony, next thing you'll be one of the people they're pushing down. You remember that, you hear me?'_

Tony heard, alright.

"You can't," he says shakily, and he doesn't know how to describe everything HYDRA _means_ , what they did - to the world, to his family, to so many families. As much as he might be angry at Steve this is just... it's vicious. It's scorched earth. "You just, you can't, okay? It's over the line. Not that."

Loki rubs at his left palm with his other thumb, frowning a little. "I think... I may understand," he says in a distracted voice. "However, you are here on a misconception - this was not my doing."

Tony blinks at him in confusion. If Loki didn't plant this idea-- People can't really think that, they wouldn't, not without _prompting_. Would they? Steve didn't mean-- everything happened so fast and things kind of spiraled, but. Surely it hasn't pushed people that far.

Tony feels weirdly numb.

He knows what Rhodey would say. 'Do nothing.' Let people say what they're going to say. But there are some things you just _don't say_ and every bone in Tony's body says that's one of them.

He feels drunk, the bad kind where he's gone out the other side into maudlin at the same time as not being able to think clearly or stand up without falling over. Steve Rogers covered up the murder of Howard and Maria Stark and it's printed in black and white for the world to see. _If you let them get away with it, next thing you'll be one of them--_ If you let them get away with it, they tear your world apart from the inside. If you let them get away with it, you only find out your father might have been Jewish six months after his funeral when a biographer tracks you down to ask you about him.

When he was a kid he loved Christmas because he was guaranteed to see his parents. He got to come home from boarding school and Mom didn't dump him on a nanny and it was winter so Dad couldn't disappear to the Arctic looking for long-lost plane wreckage. Maybe all the traditions were Mom's. How the hell would he know? All he cared about was that Christmastime meant having real parents just like everyone else.

There's a hand on his shoulder and Tony jolts to realize Loki's giving him a worried look. Loki draws breath to say something _comforting_ and a terrifyingly large part of Tony wants to just... cling. Except that he can't get invested. He can't do this again. He's already struggling to hold the pieces of himself together and one more crack might shatter him.

"I have to go," he blurts, and flees.

\--

Tony paces in Pepper's office. Every so often he sits down, changes his mind, and stands up again. He gesticulates with his hands as he talks. He's been talking for a while; he doesn't really remember what he's saying. Pepper is still listening with half her attention but has gone back to reviewing Board papers.

"...decides who gets a second chance, I mean, old Pym would just give it to whoever wasn't connected to Stark Industries, can you imagine him hiring Vanko..."

He paces. Back, forth, he can't stop _moving_ , thinking, thoughts tumbling over themselves. He doesn't want to remember how his Mom looked when she died.

"...actually asked him, well, I asked him to stop anyway, and he said it wasn't him. That sounds stupid out loud but I believe him, is that weird? That's weird, isn't it."

"It's not weird," Pepper says, half-absent, attention split between him and her computer. "It wasn't him."

Tony stops. He looks at her. Stares, in fact. There's only one way she could be so sure of that.

Pepper seems to realize what she said. She lifts her head and her expression steels.

"You did not," Tony says in disbelief.

"I did," Pepper says coolly.

"You did _not_. Pepper!"

"That man--"

"You can't launch a smear campaign--"

"--what he did to you--"

"--accusing Captain America of being _HYDRA_!"

"He may as well be!" she snaps, and for a moment there's a glimpse of burning rage in her eyes, the sort of expression that abruptly reminds Tony that Pepper is the one who killed Killian Aldrich.

Tony points his index finger at her, gut tight. "Over the line," he says flatly.

Pepper doesn't apologize. The burning rage hides away but she lifts her chin and stares right back at him. "He covered up a HYDRA assassination, started bringing open HYDRA agents onto the team, and he _left you for dead in Siberia, Tony_ \--"

All the breath is knocked out of Tony at once. This is exactly what he doesn't want to deal with. It wasn't _like that_ , it was just-- It got out of hand, but-- Steve's not like Obadiah, he wasn't _trying_ to kill Tony, he just-- panicked-- stopped thinking--

\--metal flashing, rhythmic blows--

\--trapped in his own armor _(body)_ , unable to move--

\--they're grasping at the arc reactor, something blows off Obie's arm--

\--he can't move--

"...you hear me? Tony, you're in my office. You're okay. I'm-- oh, hold on--"

Something wet and incredibly astringent hits his nose. Tony recoils, scrubbing his sleeve over his face. "What-- eurggh! Did you just sanitize me? You don't just spray a man with sanitizer!"

"I didn't know what else to do!" Pepper is protesting at the same time.

Tony takes a moment, really takes her in. There are tears in her eyes and a bottle of anti-bacterial sanitizer in her hand and if she were a slightly different type of woman she might actually hunt Steve Rogers down and murder him. It's wrong and worrying and at the same time Tony can't help but be kind of warmed by it.

He nods at the sanitizer. "You really still carry that around?"

Pepper sniffs and retreats slightly, pulling herself back together. "Yes, well, I have this crazy ex-boyfriend who sometimes shows up and complains that strangers have touched him."

She still carries it around. Tony grins a little, one side of his mouth. "I think I know that guy. Really handsome, charismatic, kind of a..."

"...Self-destructive idiot? That's the one." Pepper smiles calmly back at him, all smooth professionalism again.

"I was going to go with 'selfless benefactor', but that works too." Tony takes a deep breath and fixes himself firmly in the here and now. Okay. He's okay.

He squares his shoulders and tells Pepper, "Stop the smear campaign."

"I'll think about it," she says evenly. Her expression is unreadable.

Tony attempts to stare her down. It's... less than successful. Eventually her expression softens enough to give him a gentle smile.

"Will that be all, Mister Stark?"

It's probably about the best he can hope for right now and he gives a rueful smile back. "That will be all, Miss Potts."

\--

It's late morning when a small explosion rocks the Compound. The noise is muffled but the shockwave is noticeable. Tony runs for the closest, easiest version of the armor; he's charging the hand repulsors almost before it's finished wrapping around him.

Rhodey's in the hallway, cautiously making his way through the Compound with a Beretta pointed low ahead of him. The braces are smooth and noiseless. "Front rooms clear," he says when Tony joins him. "It came from the east side."

They find Loki's room trashed, furniture splintered against the walls. Rhodey's making some judgey comment but Tony doesn't even hear it, attention caught by something else. He picks up the charred remains of Loki's BARF headset, little more than a couple of wires and a scrap of translucent smart film.

Well, shit. Now he's worried.

"What's that, is that some kind of IED?" Rhodey asks, voice low and serious. Tony's looking around for an intact screen. "Doesn't seem his style - you think someone planted it?"

"Yeah... I did," Tony murmurs, finally finding something he can use. "FRIDAY, give me visual on this room, I need Loki's latest BARF session." Guilt gnaws at his gut.

It's not fire and brimstone. Loki's on the moon or some other random floating space rock. Tony hasn't exactly seen Asgard himself but this doesn't seem like part of it. Loki, or the projection of him - Tony can only see one - is with some big purple dude whose head looks like a giant thumb. The big dude is talking to Loki and Loki's just standing there with his head hanging down where the cameras can't make out his face.

"Audio," Tony says reluctantly.

"...of all people, understand the weight of such a decision. The difficult choice to sacrifice... for the greater good." The craggy purple guy takes a step closer. He _looms_ , and Tony wonders if that's a distortion from Loki's memory, or if the guy is really just that massive. He also speaks really slowly and dramatically. "You can be proud, Asgardian. I would be honored to call you one of my children."

Is this the biological father they've heard about, then? King of the johtings or whatever. Frost giants. He's big enough to be a giant. Tony frowns, feeling uneasy about the footage. Loki's body language is... not good.

"I knew when you came to me that you had potential," the ugly giant intones. "Your birthright... is death."

Tony's stomach lurches and he sways a little on his feet. Ultimately it doesn't matter who the giant is; it's the meaning, the weight of guilt. It's weapon caches in the desert and young soldiers gunned down in Humvees.

_My greatest creation... is you._

On the screen, Loki has flinched back a half-step, and lifts his gaze enough that the tear tracks on his face are visible. "No--"

"No?" Thumbface repeats mockingly, kind of sarcastic for a guy who's supposedly so proud.

"I'm not-- I won't--" Loki's voice is thick and ragged. Something in Tony wants to look away from the video, turn it off. This is worse than the burning to death ones.

"You have ended not one, but two worlds now," Thumbface declares. "You cannot deny this is your nature."

Loki makes a small, cracked sound in the back of his throat. His hands clench into fists. Tony is pretty sure he knows what blew up Loki's room. Loki on the screen shouts " _No--!_ " right before a flash of light and the image cuts to static.

"Huh," Rhodey says. "Is it just me, or did that thing just say he destroyed two worlds? I'm pretty sure it just said he destroyed two worlds."

Tony ignores him. He turns to examine the room, looking for clues. Something, anything that might tell him where Loki would go. There's a weird catch in his throat he doesn't want to examine too closely. He should have done something sooner, he knew Loki was using BARF to torture himself, he should have--

"FRIDAY, news alert," Rhodey commands. "Keywords: any of 'Loki', 'energy weapon', 'mass killing'."

"No," Tony says, stooping to check a scrap of bright color amid the wreckage. "He's not going to attack." It's just an empty cardboard box from frozen waffles. "Don't you get it? That's the _last_ thing he wants."

"Look, all due respect to your enemy rehabilitation scheme, but--"

Tony whirls around, easier said than done in the heavy armor. He's tense and worried and he hates it. "No, you look. I need to find Loki. These are your options: you can help me, or stay the hell out of my way."

Rhodey stares at him for a moment, then groans. "Goddammit. I knew you were going to get invested."

"I'm--" Totally invested. Tony grimaces. "Fine. Maybe a little. Not a big investment, just a... a small injection of capital."

Rhodey mutters, "Yeah, injected straight into his--"

"Seriously?"

"--Bank account," Rhodey finishes blandly. "Okay, fine. If he's that upset, maybe he forgot to activate his super stealth mode. Give Thor a call and--"

Tony snaps his fingers, catching on with a burst of relief. "Creepy spy guy! You're a lifesaver. FRIDAY, ring the Asgardians, I need to talk to Thor."

\--

Thor is actually in a meeting with the head of the International Federation of Red Cross when Tony calls, but a friendly-seeming rock promises to get Thor to phone back as soon as possible.

A rock. Because this sort of thing is real life now.

\--

Tony paces impatiently. He waits for Thor to call, then he explains the situation, except he slips and accidentally makes a reference to '1984', so then he has to wait through Thor trying to explain that Heimdall isn't actually their older brother, and _then_ he has to wait for Thor to go consult not-literal-Big-Brother and come back with an answer.

The answer is, in retrospect, kind of logical.

Tony takes off as soon as he has a destination, filing his flight path as he goes. Every minute in the air is a minute too long. He has only the broadest idea of what's going on in Loki's mind and it's enough to leave a sick, scared hole in his stomach.

_Your birthright is death._

At least he can finally admit that all his good intentions of 'not getting invested' are basically dust in the rearview mirror.

After what seems an eternity, he finally sees the sunken, wind-scoured rubble ahead. He slows down for the landing; this isn't the moment for a dramatic thump or intimidating pose. Not that Loki would see it. Tony steps out of the armor and walks forward a few paces to where Loki is gazing down at the collapsed remains of what was apparently once Project PEGASUS. The place the Tesseract first opened a portal.

Tony slips his sunglasses from his pocket and puts them on. The air is full of dust. "I don't know what you did to MCFLY," he says casually, "but I think it's trying to knit a squid."

Loki keeps staring at the abandoned hollow. After a long silence, he says, "I must apologize." His voice is low and rough. "I believe I've damaged your... retro-framing device."

Tony can't quite keep himself from responding to that understatement with the incredulous stare it deserves. But he swallows back the sarcastic retorts that spring to mind and says instead, "I don't think you're going to get much more out of using it, do you?"

There's some more silence. Loki lets out a long exhale and admits, "Perhaps it is time I stop looking to the past."

"You wouldn't be the first one to have that problem," Tony says in sidelong agreement. The sunken hollow looks nothing like the ruins of an underground government facility. Clearly, time and weather have left their mark. It's less clear whether there were any helping hands to smooth out the evidence, but it wouldn't surprise him. The spies do love a good cover-up.

So much has happened since that invasion... it feels so long ago.

"So," Tony finally says, "are you going to say it or am I?"

Loki glances at him, feigning confusion. "...Say what, exactly?"

Tony snorts. "Gee, I wonder. Now that we've established you should stop holding onto the past, and you don't want to be a force of destruction..."

Loki's still making a really convincing confused face.

Tony feels a strange twist of doubt but forges on anyway because this is deliberate, right? It's got to be. "...and you've just spent I don't know how long trolling the entire country about the Avengers being glorified criminal rehab..."

There's one moment when Loki's eyes light up in recognition and Tony thinks _aha!_ but instead Loki starts to laugh.

Tony's starting to have real doubts about his efforts at recruitment. Two seemingly-sure things, and both were a bust. Maybe he should try Barton's tactic of just signing up every woman who tries to kill him.

"No... oh, no," Loki says, still half-chuckling, wiping at the corners of his eyes. "Ah... I think not."

How did Tony read this so wrong? "But... the lawyers," he says helplessly. Second chances! It was so _obvious_.

Loki shakes his head and turns to face Tony more fully, giving him a rueful smile. "You know, I read that document you spoke of. The Sokovia Accords. The way it speaks of the Avengers... It's all very... militarized."

Tony feels his stomach sink. Of course an Asgardian would object to the idea of oversight. They've been traipsing across international borders at whim - interstellar borders, even - for millennia. They think of Earth as a dumping ground for their banished exiles. Why did he ever think Loki would pretend to-- Even Thor got cranky if he wasn't spoken to the right way--

(He just didn't think the rejection was going to be so _soon_ \--)

"I know it comes off a little strongly worded," he makes himself say, from force of habit more than anything else, "but it's legalese, it's designed to intimidate people into compliance. It's more about making sure..."

He doesn't know what he wants to say. He's been telling himself over and over that the others thought they were doing the right thing and everything got out of hand and he should be fair-- He's so goddamn tired of being fair.

"You misunderstand me," Loki says, in a tone that's a weird mix of gentle and acerbic. "Not the document. The Avengers. Even the name of your little group" - that's definitely more on the acerbic side - "implies vengeance and punishment, harm piled on top of harm. I... all I would be doing is finding somewhere new to wreak destruction. I _won't_ , I refuse."

"...Oh," Tony manages. He blinks. That's... a different perspective. He feels a lot lighter, suddenly. (As well as sort of stupid for jumping to paranoid conclusions so quickly, but what's new.)

"I thought perhaps..." Loki falters and trails off.

"What?" Tony cocks his head, curious. What would catch the interest of someone like Loki? "Late night talk show? Foul-mouthed celebrity chef? Oh, wait, the mean judge on one of those talent shows, you've got the bitchy look down _perfectly_ \--"

Loki eyes him disdainfully. It's a truly majestic expression.

Tony claps his hands together with a shout of laughter. "That one! Yes, you've got it down pat."

"Are you quite done?" Loki says, a hint of impatience in his voice that says clearer than anything that he's still feeling vulnerable and Tony's treading on the edges of his insecurity.

Tony restrains himself, bringing his tone down to something a little more moderate. "Okay, seriously. What do you wanna do? We can make it happen."

Loki shifts his weight and scowls defensively. He folds his arms and mumbles, "Perhaps something with children. Satisfied?"

Tony blinks again. There is a distinctly warm feeling in his chest. It might be his heart, or it might be more laughter. It's hard to say. "I'll admit I did not see that coming."

"It was just a thought," Loki snaps, bristling, and Tony reaches out to pry at those folded arms.

"Hey, hey, no. Look, life is hard enough without both of us assuming the worst all the time. Huh, that was accidentally profound. I mean it, though." He gets Loki's arms unfolded and slides his grasp down to squeeze both Loki's hands in his. "I think it's nice. You were good with Peter. And if you think joining the Avengers would be bad for you, then-- well, you're probably smarter than I am."

That's painfully true on a number of levels that Tony would rather not contemplate. He grimaces and pushes onwards. 

"I mean, you're not wrong about the name. Actually, since Nick Fury is a lying liar who fakes his own death and leaves other people to take the heat for his shitty decisions, there's no real reason to keep it. We should probably consider a rebranding anyway. But that's not your problem."

Loki looks down at their clasped hands. His expression is still kind of grim. Then he says, "I suppose if I am not joining your little band, it is time I seek out other lodging. You did say it was... temporary."

Oh. Tony swallows and steps a little closer. He really hates that Loki is so much taller than him. Okay, he also really likes it, but it makes looking up to meet his eyes annoying. "I said a lot of things. I also said I wasn't going to get invested."

Loki's eyes flicker rapidly, searching Tony's expression. "Ah. And... did you?"

"I might," Tony says slowly, using his grasp on Loki's hands to place them on his waist. "Have gotten." He lets go and brings his own hands up to drape them around the back of Loki's neck. "A little. Teeny." He can see Loki's eyes darken with desire. "Head over heels." He leans up, enjoying the expectant kick of his pulse. "Invested..."

"This makes it very easy," Loki murmurs, bending close, "for me to..."

Tony lets his eyes drift closed while a tiny part of himself is laughing at himself for acting out a romance movie and another part is telling that part to shut up because he _likes_ cheesy romance movies, and he likes Loki (more than likes), and he lets his lips part--

And the world _lurches_. Tony feels like freefall for a split second. He's pretty sure gravity alters around him. He stumbles, trying to find his footing, and lands flat on his ass.

In the lounge. In the Compound.

"...teleport you," Loki finishes, smirking gleefully like an _evil goddamn son of a bitch trickster_.

"Why can't you be the God of _Souvenir Keychains_ ," Tony demands, disgusted with his own terrible taste in men. He's going to have to get FRI to pilot the armor back, too.

Loki just spreads his hands, trying for the innocent 'I can't help it' expression. It fails miserably, mostly because he doesn't bother to stop smirking.

Tony clambers to his feet. For the sake of propriety he makes a show of muttering a few good swearwords, but he's actually kind of grateful now that gravity's settled down. If Loki's feeling good enough to play dumb pranks, then... he's okay. Or going to be okay.

They're not perfect, but they're okay. Tony can live with that.

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record: Mechanized Clothing From Linked Yarn.


	3. Coda

After dinner, Loki announces, "I have ice cream."

Loki's been furtive all day, smirking to himself and obviously brimming with excitement. Tony has a few theories on what this joke is going to be, but there's always the chance it's something completely off-the-wall. Still, he wouldn't put it past Loki to have tracked down some obscure foreign brand with an over-the-top, bondage-themed, fully porntastic name.

"Is this the big one?" he asks, playing along to see what's going to happen.

Loki's smirk broadens. "I believe it may become my favorite flavor. It's hard to be sure so soon, but... it's promising."

Tony grabs a couple of bowls, "Uh huh," and spoons, "so which one is it?"

"This is confidential, you understand," Loki says, widening his eyes solemnly. "It hasn't been officially distributed yet, but I was able to obtain a... pre-release sample."

Uh... huh. Tony puts the plates and cutlery on the table and slips back into his chair. He eyes Loki with a mixture of wariness and curiosity. "Okay..."

With a flourish, Loki places a tub on the table. Tony recognizes the familiar styling of Ben & Jerry's before he registers anything else, and then his jaw drops and _how long has the bastard been planning--_

 _Stark Raving Hazelnuts!_ says the tub.

"You got them to _name a flavor_ after me," Tony says in disbelief.

...Holy shit. He invited Loki-- and the whole silly ice cream joke-- and Loki asked him-- went and arranged--

Tony drags in a breath, trying to get control of the warmth bubbling up in his chest. This might be the nicest prank anyone's ever played. He actually can feel himself get a little teary-eyed, it's ridiculous. He's gonna have to buy Loki, like, a super-yacht or something. Something extravagant enough for this feeling probably doesn't even exist. He's going to have to invent it.

"Now," says Loki, with a smile that's sweet and fiery and a little bit dangerous, "shall we find out which of us is the one with the, how did you put it? 'Great tasting nuts'?"

Good god. This is, what, three different paybacks wrapped in a delicious frozen dairy masterstroke. Tony is man enough to know when he is completely outclassed.

He thinks with certainty, _you magnificent bastard, I am going to marry you_. Someday, somehow. When they've both got their feet a bit more firmly under themselves.

In the meantime, he rests his chin in one hand and smiles across the table at Loki. "Sounds like there should be some kind of scientific testing. A rating scale and comprehensive analysis."

"Hm," Loki murmurs thoughtfully, dishing a scoop of ice cream into each of the two bowls. ( _Stark_ ice cream, Tony has a _genuine ice cream flavor_ named after him and somehow that's more exciting than any of the genuinely prestigious awards he's won.) "I believe that involves repeating the experiment a number of times for reliability?"

"As many times as necessary," Tony confirms. He pulls one of the bowls towards himself.

Loki smiles, spoon poised, eyes bright with amusement and happiness. It's a good look. "Then we'd better get started."

#


End file.
